


Swear This One You'll Save

by losterthanlife



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Drug Use, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Rape/Non-con, Post-Season 4, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Assault, Transactional sex work, Will eventually incorporate 5x07 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:25:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losterthanlife/pseuds/losterthanlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why when we do our darkest deeds, do we tell? They burn in our brains, become a living hell, 'cause everybody tells, everybody tells..." </p><p>Ian and Mickey struggle to overcome the newest challenge in this relationship. But as they make sense of what life looks like now, their secrets - both past and present - threaten to destroy them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Starting from Zero

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter One - _Starting from Zero_**

It’s six days, five hours, and twenty-six…no, twenty-seven minutes later when Ian finally emerges from the bedroom. For a moment, Mickey wonders if the sleeplessness is getting to him, maybe he’s just imagining the red head, wearing the same boxers he’s been wearing since this all started. Least he found a t-shirt on his way out of the room, though Mickey recognizes it as one he himself wore two days ago.

Ian stands at the sink, filling up a glass of water, and sips it for a long, silent moment. Maybe he doesn’t even see Mickey, but then Yev, for all the fucking good he does, starts grunting on his lap. Ian pauses, the glass a couple inches from his lips, and speaks without turning his head. “Mornin’.”

Just like that. Just that fucking simple. _Mornin’._ Mickey sees red for a moment, but as the word replays in his mind, he hears how rough Ian’s voice has gotten from disuse. Not a word for six days, and he acts like it didn’t happen. “Afternoon, really,” Mickey replies, not taking his eyes of the side of Ian’s head.

“Right,” Ian says, scoffing.

He sets the glass down in the sink, and he still doesn’t turn. Yev grunts again, and wiggles in Mickey’s arms, the beginning of tears forming in his eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake, you little shit.” Mickey stands, stalking over to the living room and plopping the kid down into the playpen. He glances at the clock again, and thinks that he did well enough – they spent almost thirty-four minutes at the table together, and that’s more than yesterday. Progress, or something like that. “You just gonna act like I’m not in the fucking room?”

 

* * *

 

The light in the room seared Ian’s eyes when he woke up. He turned over, clutching the sheet to pull it over his head and block out the light. But something about the way he’d been laying had left the sheet to get twisted up in his legs, and he felt the blanket knot around his feet.

It pissed him off. He cussed, and flailed his feet around, but the blankets had turned into some sort of Chinese finger trap in his sleep, and the harder he fought the more knotted he became. So really, he got out of bed that morning because he hardly had a choice about it. It wasn’t some grand revelation, there weren’t birds of happiness and sunshine chirping – the bed had waged war against him, and it was a war he didn’t care to try to win today.

It’s when Mickey addresses him from the living room that he feels it again – that anger. Mickey’s words feel about the same as the blanket, and suddenly Ian finds himself thinking even wrestling with the smelly, sweat-soaked fabric is preferable to having this sort of conversation. But he turns, and even though he wants to look at Mickey, he doesn’t think he can.

“I said morning, didn’t I?” he asks the back of the couch.

“Oh yes, excuse the fuck out of me, I got a ‘morning’…at two in the fucking afternoon, six goddamn days later. Right. Everything’s fucking perfect. Great.”

Ian’s eyes narrow. “Fuck’s your problem?” It’s a stupid question, even Ian knows that, because of course he knows what Mickey’s problem is. Ian. Ian is Mickey’s fucking problem, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make him mad to have Mickey challenge him the way he is.

Mickey’s eyes widen as his eyebrows raise, as if he can’t believe the question. “The fuck is _my_ –“ his hands gesture in front of him, but he doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he sighs, the air making the hair over his eye flutter. “Just…right. Nothing’s my problem.”

Ian hates being lied to, and he opens his mouth to challenge it, but his eyes fall, something orange and white catching his eye in the center of the table. “You sick?”

 

* * *

 

 

The question catches Mickey off guard. He looks up, his mouth already open to ask what the hell does Ian even mean by that question, when he follows Ian’s gaze to the table. _Oh, right_. “No, not sick,” he supplies in response, as if that’s enough to end the conversation.

“Svetlana?”

Mickey shakes his head, trying to figure out what to say. Ian glowers at him, stalking forward and picking the bottle up. “Look, man –“

He can see the precise moment Ian reads the label, because his shoulders stiffen. “What the hell are you doing with these?”

 

* * *

 

 

_Gallagher, Monica._ Ian has to turn the bottle to see the name in its entirety, but there it is, in black and white. Below that, some words Ian can’t quite pronounce, but the parentheses beside them clear it up for him: _lithium._

“Did you take these from my house?” He looks back up at Mickey then, his eyes darting, taking in Mickey’s every feature. He feels, for that moment, as if he hasn’t ever seen Mickey before. Because if _this_ is Mickey, if Mickey takes this kind of stuff from his house…he hasn’t seen him before.

“Oh, fuck off,” Mickey says, his face twisted and angry. For a brief flash of a second, Ian thinks he feels a little embarrassed, jumping to that conclusion, but….

“How did you get these, then? These are…these are my mother’s, why would you…?” He’s too flabbergasted, too confused, to finish the question, but it’s clear to Mickey anyway.

His stuffs his hands into his pockets, and in doing so, he half shrugs his shoulders. Ian thinks this is his explanation, and he’s about to yell at him, when Mickey says it. “Lip brought them by.”

“Excuse me?” It’s the last explanation Ian would have expected. He thinks back over the last couple days, trying to remember…he thinks he might have remembered a hand on his shoulder, shaking him a little, but then…and there it was. He could remember now, Lip was yelling and Debbie was there and she started crying, and then it got quiet for a long while. It was awhile after that when Mickey came back, and when he curled around Ian’s back and looped his arm over top of him, Ian saw his knuckles were bruised, and he didn’t think they’d looked like that earlier.

Mickey isn’t looking at Ian anymore. “He and Fiona thought they’d help.”

“Help who?” He’s being deliberately obtuse, pretending not to know, but he’s challenging Mickey on purpose. He trains his eyes on the bottle in his hand, the multi colored warning stickers blurring before him. If they’re going to do this to him, then they’re damn well going to be open about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey had spent a lot of time the last six days imagining what it’d be like when Ian snapped out of it. It was his primary thought, really, besides the overwhelming fear and the desperation. It was the only thing that made him feel not quite so delusional; to think that maybe there would be an end to this. He had this image of a smile on Ian’s face, this dream that involved pancakes and pictures of the goddamn sunrise and it was disgusting how much he wanted that, but he did.

_This_ , this angry redhead standing in front of him, acting like he wasn’t even aware of the life he’d lived for almost a week, this was nothing like what he wanted.

“They… _we_ just thought that maybe, if you took them…stuff wouldn’t get like that for you.”

“Like what?” Ian’s still trying to bait him, his voice higher than before, and at first Mickey wants to attack back. He wants to yell and tell Ian that Ian knows exactly “like what”, so fuck him for trying to play stupid. But he stays quiet, and lets Ian press harder. “Like they were for Monica? What the fuck do you know about Monica anyway, huh? _What_?”

It’s the way he yells the last sentence that makes Mickey snap. His head raises, and his jaw is set as he glares at Ian. “You need to take a fucking chill pill, asshole.” He realizes as soon as he says it that it’s a dumb fucking thing to say, and with the way Ian blinks at him, he knows Ian heard it too. “I…fuck, that’s not what that was supposed to…look, something’s going on with you and your family’s been worried sick and they just thought…I wouldn’t let them take you to some place where the people don’t know a damn thing about you and we thought maybe this would be a way to figure it out.”

Ian snorts, tossing the bottle back on the table. It rolls, and lands on the floor with a clatter. Yev whines in the playpen beside Mickey’s leg, but Mickey doesn’t look away from Ian.

 

* * *

 

 

“Because that’s what they think, isn’t it? They think because I’ve always been _Monica’s boy_ …that I must be sick like her too?” Ian hasn’t really stopped to think as he speaks, and he’s only half hearing his own words. He feels betrayed, exposed, and childish, because everyone’s been talking about him and who’s even bothered to talk _to_ him? “The fuck do any of you know about this? About me? How many of you bothered to ask?”

There’s a glint of something that almost frightens Ian in Mickey’s eye then. Like the way Mickey used to look at him, long ago when they weren’t really who they are now. “Who bothered to ask? How about every fucking one of us? Even goddamn little shit Carl sat there with you for half a day, reading you that psycho ass story he wrote for class about blowing up his teacher and asked you whether you thought it was funny six times. Just because you’ve had the privilege of checking out for the past six days doesn’t mean you get to ignore how everyone fell all over your selfish ass –“

“Fuck you, Mickey.” Ian doesn’t realize he’s standing closer to Mickey until Mickey backs up, and the gesture makes him so mad he closes the distance between them again, until they are nose to nose.

“Back up,” Mickey says firmly, but Ian doesn’t move.

“I’m so selfish, huh? I’m ‘checked out’? Jesus, Mick, who the fuck asked _any_ of you to do that shit? Who actually asked you all just to leave me alone? You think I want your fucking pity?”

“Ian –“ Mickey’s doing that thing he does these days, when he’s mean and then he acts like he doesn’t mean it. He says something nasty and then he softens and he says Ian’s name and yeah, Ian usually gives into that, but he’s not going to this time.

“I _wanted_ to be left alone. I _wanted_ you all to go get on with your lives and forget it. Forget me. God, do you think it’s fucking fun for me to have my funeral played out in front of me, all these people sitting death bed vigil for me? No, I wanted to be left alone to fucking disappear in peace, and you –“ Ian’s brain has turned on now, and he’s hearing what he’s saying. He’s looking right at Mickey, but he isn’t really seeing him. Mickey’s mouth is open, and he looks different – wounded, almost, but Ian can barely see it. Instead, he hears his words, and he hates himself for saying it out loud. He takes a step back, and shakes his head. “Just forget it. Just…I’m tired, I’m being stupid. Just forget it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey almost wants to laugh. He can feel his throat tighten, because he’s choking down a laugh, it’s so absurd that Ian actually thinks – he seriously believes – Mickey could ever just forget what he just said. “Ian, man, do you even hear yourself?” The sentence comes out in a sigh, it’s full of defeat, and Mickey doesn’t like the way he sounds.

Ian licks his lip, then bites them. “Yeah, I heard it.”

“No one’s saying you’re Monica…look, I know fuck all about your mom, you’re right. But I fucking know you and I know _this_ -“ he gestures at Ian “-this is not you. And I think…I think you should go see somebody, and I think we should make sure we know what we’re dealing with.”

“So you think I’m crazy?”

Mickey runs a hand over his face, considering the question. “Probably no more than the rest of us, and sure as shit not half as crazy as ninety percent of the people I know.” It’s an honest answer, but the frown on Ian’s face suggests he either doesn’t buy it, or it doesn’t sound how Mickey thought it would. “Does that really matter? Maybe you’ve got an opportunity here to actually make something fucking easy on yourself for once. Whether this is or this isn’t the Monica thing, it’s such as shit something.”

Ian folds his arms over his chest, and its then that Mickey sees his hands are trembling. “Whatever, then.”

“The fuck’s that mean?”

“It means you win, you all win. I’ll go see someone or whatever.” He looks up at Mickey then, and his eyes seem big and scared and he seems younger in that moment then he was before. “I’m tired.”

The words wound Mickey a little, but he finds himself nodding anyway, like it’s an okay thing for Ian to be after he’s slept nearly a week of your life away. “Do me a favor?”

Ian’s eyes actually roll, and for a fleeting second, Mickey sees _his_ Ian again. “I’m not doing you enough of one already?”

Mickey lets out a huff of laughter. “Just call your family before you go back to sleep, yeah? Get them off my nuts for the day? They’ve already called four times today and I’d like to get some actual shit done without having to play phone tag all day.”


	2. If I Lose Myself

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Two – _If I Lose Myself_**

There’s this kind of routine they fall into, after a while.

Ian’s alarm goes off at some god-awful time in the morning, and Mickey cusses at him, but it makes Ian smile, and as long as Mickey’s up, he usually indulges himself a little before he pulls himself away and puts on his clothes to go for a run. Some mornings, if Yev’s been particularly difficult the night before, Svetlana hands him off and let’s Ian take him on a run with him. Ian thinks it’s the sound of his shoes against the pavement, or maybe Yev just likes the motion, but he’s always asleep by the time they get back, and Ian brings back everyone’s favorite coffees in a drink carrier he’s balanced in between the handlebar and the seat of the stroller. Usually by then, Mickey’s started making breakfast, and Nikka or Svetlana tuck Yev in, and Mandy and Mickey’s brothers come downstairs, and they all have breakfast together like this isn’t the weirdest family picture in the whole entire world.

It’s one of these mornings, as Ian is helping Nikka carefully extract Yev from the stroller so he doesn’t wake up, that the front door opens and closes and he hears Debbie calling out. “Hey, hey,” he says, as loud as he dares so close to Yev, as she comes into the room. “Mind keeping it down?” He jerks his head down at Yev, who stirs just enough to nestle into Nikka’s arms.

“Sorry, sorry,” Debbie says, her face the very picture of apology. She’s got a stack of envelopes in her hand, which she holds out as she strives over to Ian. “Brought your mail.”

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey turns his head as Nikka brushes past him. “What you doing here, anyway?” he asks Debbie, poking absentmindedly at the scrambled eggs in the pan with his spatula. “Funny how you Gallaghers can always find the phone when you wanna irritate me, but to tell me to make more food for breakfast, nope, don’t hear a word.”

Debbie shakes her head. “Already had breakfast at Fiona’s. I’m here to see Mandy.”

Mickey’s eyebrows raise. “Oh yeah? What’s the lesson she’s teaching you today?” Mandy and Debbie don’t often have little playdates, but they’ve happened enough times to know that they usually involve highly questionable conversations about dicks and doggy style and other stuff Mickey wants to pretend they don’t talk about.

“Seven ways to make a man stay with you forever,” Debbie says matter of factly.

Mickey looks to Ian to judge his reaction, but Ian’s got a letter unfolded in his hand and doesn’t seem to have heard any of it. “Well, if she even so much as says the word ‘swallow’ to you, you fucking ignore it, you hear me?”

The look Debbie gives him then makes it clear she hasn’t actually learned about that – yet, anyway.

It isn’t until she’s gone upstairs to find Mandy that Mickey realizes Ian’s still looking at that same letter. “Yo, you still here?”

Ian jerks as if he’s been smacked, and looks around, trying to stuff the letter back into the envelope without looking at it. “Huh – oh, yeah, I…where’s Debs?”

“Probably practicing deep throating bananas upstairs with Mandy.”

“What?” Ian asks.

Mickey just laughs and jerks his head at the stack of envelopes in Ian’s hand. “What was so interesting?”

“Huh?” Ian looks back at the paper in his hand like he forgot it was there. “Oh…nothing, really. Just – gonna have to go back to work soon.”

They haven’t talked about Ian working for a very long time, and the idea of it seems so unconnected to mail that Mickey is surprised. He turns then, folding his arms over his chest. “And why’s that?”

Ian sets the envelopes down on the table then, shifting back and forth on his feet. “Bill finally showed up.”

“For?” Mickey says, impatiently. “Seriously, Gallagher, can you just fucking catch me up here?”

Ian glances at him, before reaching down and grabbing the open letter and thrusting it at Mickey. “The hospital bill.”

 

* * *

 

 

It isn’t just that Mickey’s eyebrows raise when he sees the total due. He says “Fuck”, and then “How the hell-“, and then he says a couple more things that sound more like strangled chokes then actual words. He looks at Ian, and Ian isn’t sure what he face looks like just then, but whatever it is, it shuts Mickey up immediately.

“Could be worse,” Mickey says flatly then, handing the letter back. “Should’ve seen how much it costs to push a damn kid out. Now _that’s_ a bill.”

Ian smiles for Mickey’s benefit, but he doesn’t really find it that amusing. He’d been stupid, so stupid. How had he let Mickey talk him into going this doctor, into taking those pills, without even once considering how they’d pay for it? And this was only the first of it – the paper didn’t even account for the last two times he’d gone, to check of “side effects” or whatever, and all the times from now on he’d have to get the script filled…

“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Mickey says. “Rub n Tug’s not doing so bad, we can manage it –“

Ian imagines he’s supposed to feel comforted by this idea, that maybe his heart’s supposed to feel warm and fuzzy because Mickey said ‘we’ and all that, but he just can’t fake it. “No, I’ve got it. Just probably should have thought of this earlier.”

Mickey’s watching him, not saying anything, until finally Ian can’t take being stared at anymore. “You’re going to burn the eggs,” he says simply, before he walks out of the room.

 

* * *

 

Mickey doesn’t like the way Ian looks that morning at breakfast, but he goes to work anyway with Svetlana when the meal is over. It isn’t like he’s got much of a choice, when they’ve somehow got a few extra thousand they’ve got to scare up from somewhere. It’s a slower day for them in the space above the Alibi, but it is a Tuesday, and Mickey tries not to stress when the day ends and he’s barely got a couple hundred to show for it in his take.

When it comes time to take Kev’s cut down to him, Mickey hides a little bit in the waistband of his jeans. They’re in a good place now, him and Kev, a sort of understanding worked out between them – but if he’s got to be totally upfront about Kev’s cut, he’ll never get the money to pay off Ian’s bills. There’s a sense of urgency about this, because fuck if he’s going to give Ian another thing to worry about. They’ve got a good thing at the moment. Sure, Ian isn’t really Ian still, but he looks and talks and acts enough like who he used to be that Mickey can actually relax about stuff. And there’s no telling what will make their precarious balance no longer so balanced.

Mickey’s on the front porch recounting the money, doing the math to figure out how much time he needs, factoring it against how long he thinks he can reasonably keep Ian from going back to work, when he hears the shouting inside. “ _You can get the fuck out!_ ”

It isn’t as if no one ever yells in the Milkovich household. In fact, if more than two days go by without someone yelling, it’s probably a sure sign at least one person’s been murdered…but it’s usually not Ian who’s doing the screaming.

In his rush, Mickey leaves the front door open, but the draft that wafts behind him hardly matters as he searches the house. “Ian? Yo, Ian, where the hell -?” But he finds them then, Ian and Nikka, and Ian’s got his forearm pressed across Nikka’s shoulders, pressing her to the wall. He looks to the other side of the room and sees Svetlana, Yev in one arms resting on his hip, and a gun cocked and pointed at Ian in the other. “What the _fuck_ is going on?”

 

* * *

 

Ian whips his head to the side, recognizing that Mickey’s standing there, and he’s so relieved he actually feels a lump in his throat like he might cry. Because finally, someone’s going to see, and Nikka is going to leave.

He turns his head back to Nikka, and in that moment she spits. It burns his eye and he closes it, hissing, but all the while pressing his arm against her harder. She starts shouting in Russian, because she hardly knows English.

“Nobody knows that the fuck you’re saying, “ Mickey says angrily, and after a moment, his hand is on Ian’s arm. “What the fuck are you doing? Take it easy, come on.” Ian doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, his eyes trained on Nikka. “Would you put that thing away?” It takes Ian a moment to register Mickey’s not talking to him.

“Call off attack dog,” Svetlana says angrily from behind Ian. “Now.”

 

* * *

 

“C’mon, Ian, let her go –“

“No!” Ian yells at him, and the volume surprises Mickey. He tightens his grip on Ian’s arm, trying to tug him away.

“Seriously, it’s cool, okay? Everything’s fine, you just gotta –“

“She was going to hurt him!” He says, trying to wriggle out of Mickey’s hold without losing his grip on Nikka, who starts again with her Russian.

“Shut up!” Mickey barks at Nikka, because the last thing he needs is to listen to her nonsense right now. “Trying to hurt who, Ian?”

“You do not tell her to shut up!” Svetlana challenges, and Mickey flaps his hand out her to quiet down, trying to focus on Ian for his answer.

“Yev.” The syllable of a name trembles as it falls out of Ian’s lips, and Mickey’s grip loosens as he glares over at Svetlana.

“Please tell me the reason you’ve got that gun out is to shoot her, then.”

Svetlana shakes her head, saying something in Russian. “She never touch baby bad. She love baby. Your _stupid_ Carrot Boy –“

“She was going to – you can’t just leave that shit laying around!” Ian shouts.

“She did _nothing!_ ” Svetlana shouts at the back of his head, spouting off in Russian, and Nikka starts up again too, and Mickey’s just trying to make sense of Ian’s words and it’s pissing him off.

Mickey’s eyes narrow. “Leave what – Ian, get the fuck off her and let’s talk about this.” Ian’s eyes find his, and he forces himself to look far less scared than he feels, and tries to settle for a begging look like he doesn’t usually wear.

“But –“ Ian sounds confused now, and it hurts Mickey to hear.

“It’s okay,” Mickey says quietly, very aware of Svetlana in that moment. “Just let go. Tell me what she did, just not like this, okay?” He pulls at Ian’s arm again, and this time, Ian lets him guide his arm away.

“I was cleaning, right? ‘Cause I was going out of my mind with boredom and I thought it’d be nice, and…” He looks at Mickey, then back at his hands, shaking uncontrollably. Mickey moves, just for a second, to grab them in his own, but thinks better of it. Ian notices the halted gesture and crosses his arms over his chest. “It was in the fucking _couch_ , Mick.”

Mickey looks over at the couch, but he doesn’t see anything. “What are you talking about?”

“He lies, he tells lies and tries to hurt Nikka-“

“Just _shut up_ for a damn minute!” Mickey hisses. “What did you find?”

“Coke,” Ian says, stuttering on the word. “I made them tell me and Svetlana said it was Nikka’s –“

“I would have said nothing, if I knew Carrot Boy was going to be ape shit,” Svetlana spat.

“Mick, you can’t let her stay here. Yev…he could’ve died.”

 

* * *

 

 

He can tell from the look on Mickey’s face that he doesn’t get it. He’s got this pitying expression, like he feels sorry for Ian, when Ian’s nothing to feel sorry for – he’s a _hero_ , for heaven’s sake, why can’t he... “Please, Mick,” Ian says, “please see what I’m saying.”

“Where the fuck did she even get that shit?” Mickey says over his shoulder to Svetlana, and Ian feels like he’s been punched. He’s missing the point - why does that matter, why is she still here? She isn’t safe for Yev – he knows Mickey’s still teasing out exactly what fatherhood is supposed to be for him, but _come on_. Surely even he can tell this isn’t okay.

“Work,” Svetlana says. “Man runs out of money, he find other ways to pay.”

Mickey looks back at him, and the way his eyebrow arches gives Ian the impression that he expects him to care about this information. Like this changes anything. “Mickey,” Ian says, the name more of a gasp than a real word. “Come on, you can’t let this happen to Yev. Liam…”

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey is a pretty dense individual. He knows how to do a lot, and he’s no fool, but he’s fucking dense as hell, that much is for sure. As soon as Ian says the name it clicks for him. “Shit,” he says quietly, and the look of hope on Ian’s face makes him want to throw up.

He can’t look at it anymore, this desperation radiating from Gallagher because the pieces have clicked into place, so he turns a little and looks at Svetlana. “Put the fucking gun down now,” he says, gesturing behind him. “Your little lover bitch is safe.”

Svetlana lowers the gun, but the angle she’s at now would probably cause her to hit Ian right in the ass, so Mickey’s not totally satisfied. “I want him out.”

“No fucking way,” Mickey says angrily, and before he can think about, he’s reached over and grabbed Ian’s wrist. Ian is still faced toward Nikka, but out of the corner of his eye, he catches Ian look down at where their bodies connect. “He’s fucking stay here, and so is Nikka, and so are you, and so is that little brat. No one is going anywhere, so just calm your fucking crazy Russian tits.”

“He try to kill Nikka,” Svetlana insists through barred teeth.

“Yeah, and with good fucking reason,” Mickey replies, though he isn’t quite sure that he thinks that. “Look, you wanna get paid in blow or fancy ass boots or I don’t know, fucking pedicures or some shit, go ahead. But you don’t bring this kind of shit in here, not when there are little kids that can get into it.”

“Mick –“ Ian starts to say, but Mickey tightens his grip on his wrist.

“Everyone is going to keep that shit out of this house, and we’re all moving the fuck on. No one’s shooting anybody, no one’s strangling anybody, we are all getting fucking over it.” Svetlana doesn’t respond, but drops the barrel of the gun to the floor, so he takes that as agreement. He looks at Ian, he won’t make eye contact, and then back at Nikka. “You explain this to her, got it?” He says to Svetlana, who shrugs.

“Learn to control your pet,” Svetlana finally says, then she says something in Russian and she, Yev, and Nikka leave.

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as the girls are gone, Mickey lets go of Ian’s wrist, and Ian begins to feel like his chest has been crushed. “I…oh, fuck,” he breathes, and he covers his face with his hands.

“Hey, Ian…Ian!” Mickey’s arms on around him then, and it’s a lot of pressure…and Ian grabs his arm with his hands, noticing then that his knees have buckled, and he’s not supporting himself. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know,” Ian says, regaining his balance. He allows himself to stay braced by Mickey though, suddenly feeling dizzy. “I…I just lost it, I didn’t want anything to happen…I’ll apologize to them, really I will.”

“It’s okay,” Mickey says. “She shouldn’t have had that shit here, you’re right. They don’t get it, but I do, okay?”

Ian shakes his head, the motion makes his stomach churn. “I just…Liam was so close…I couldn’t stand it if that happened to Yev.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s odd for Mickey, and for not the first time, he wishes that Yev could be Ian’s kid instead of his. Not because he wanted Ian to have done what he had to do to bring the kid into the world, but because at least Ian gives a shit. His voices sounds broken and lost and terrified, and Mickey knows that’s mostly because he’s thinking of Liam in that hospital, but still…it’s more concern than Mickey would’ve paid to Yev, had he been the one to find the coke.

“I’m not…this isn’t a crazy thing,” Ian says suddenly, drawing Mickey from his thoughts.

“Fuck you, I wasn’t going to say anything like that,” Mickey says. He wonders, briefly, if that’s even true. “But next time you wanted to go all hero mode for the baby meat, could you at least, I don’t know, not pin people to the fucking wall? It’s not like she was beating him or something.”

Ian’s eyes flicker at him, and he thinks he probably shouldn’t have made mention of that. Something he’s learned about kids – people really don’t like when you reference anything bad happening to them, even if you’re saying it wasn’t even happening.

“I need to go to work,” Ian announces suddenly, and just like that, he’s straightening up and pulling away from Mickey.

“No you don’t,” Mickey says, and suddenly he’s scrambling to try to remember the thing he was going to tell Ian to keep him from work. He’d thought out the perfect plan out on that porch, but that suddenly seemed very long ago and very hard to recall. “Look, you can –“

“I can go to work,” Ian supplies for him. “It’s not a big deal, okay? I’m fine, I got it, I’m sorry I did that, I just want to move on now.”

“Let me change real quick and I’ll go with you, then,” Mickey says, because he feels kind of helpless, and fuck being helpless, honestly.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian's stomach is still full of acid and bile and hatred as he shakes his head. “Nah, you – you were just at work all day. I got this, okay? You should probably stay here and make sure those two don’t set fire to all my stuff, anyway.”

“Ian –“ Mickey says, his jaw set.

“No, Mick.” He doesn’t want to spend his night with Mickey. Truth be told, he isn’t even actually sure he’s going to work. He just knows he’s going somewhere, anywhere, where Mickey won’t be, because right now he just needs to be away from him. He’s pitying Ian, and he’s pretending that this isn’t a fucked up thing, but it is and Ian needs to be alone.

Mickey’s going to argue again, but he studies Ian’s face for a moment, and gives in. “What the fuck ever, I got better things to do then watch you hump a bunch of nasty ass old men anyway.”

Ian expects Mickey to be mad, because even Ian’s mad at Ian right now, but once he’s showered and dressed and ready to leave, Mickey grabs him before he walks out the door, and he kisses him in a way that kind of hurts. In that moment, Ian doesn’t want to leave – he wants to stay and take more of Mickey, sew their bodies together until he can’t just be Ian anymore, but a part of something more and connected and special. But the way Mickey searches his eyes when they pull apart tells him there is no escaping this in Mickey today. So he leaves, and he escapes into himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually quite proud of the /concept/ of this chapter (not sure if I'll always love the execution of it), but...this chapter actually sets up some foreshadowing to some future situations in this story...though maybe not in the way you might think...muahahahah.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all so much for your kudos and comments on the first chapter! I'm so excited you're all enjoying the story so far. 
> 
> Hope you check back for the next chapter - though I'm not entirely certain how soon I'll be posting it.


	3. The Feast and the Famine

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Three – The Feast and the Famine**

The day he sat in the doctor’s office for the first time, the nurse left him alone for forty-five minutes, telling him the doctor would be in to see him shortly. She left him a stack of paperwork, all these questions asking him to circle a number for how sad he’d felt in the past month, and all these other dumb questions he didn’t want to answer.

He wished, as he flipped through the papers and answered less than half the questions, he hadn’t told Mickey just to stay in the waiting room. He’d been so prepared to go back with him, but when the lady had called him name, he’d given Mickey’s hand a little squeeze and asked him to stay behind. And Mickey was still tripping over himself to be the white knight, so he obliged, even though he didn’t look that happy about it.

The doctor had told Ian that this medication might not work. It almost made Ian laugh, how clueless this whole process was. As the doctor handed him the prescription, he told him they’d made another appointment for him to come back in a few weeks to check things out. He urged Ian to read the paperwork that would come with the pills carefully, so he had a thorough understanding of the side effects he might experience.

He didn’t read the paperwork, but as the weeks wore on, he decided he didn’t need to. The side effects paraded themselves in front of him. There was nausea, which Mickey deftly avoided having to witness; his lost big clumps of hair when he showered; his dreams were weirder, and sometimes they were downright traumatizing, but at least Mickey was more patient with those than the vomiting; it was harder to breathe when he’d get a real intense run in. Quite frankly, he didn’t really feel like these pills did one bit of the stuff they were _supposed_ to do, but an awful lot of shit they weren’t meant for.

On the rare occasions Mickey would take the time to ask, Ian would tell him he felt better. That he was “eighty-four” percent, or some other number that seemed high enough to convey the point that yes, I’m doing better now but no, I’m not lying because I’m still admitting stuff is kinda shit sometimes. But truthfully, he didn’t feel a lick of difference, and on the days he did, he was pretty sure he just felt worse than he used to. But when Mickey wasn’t asking how he was doing, he was hovering, and it was an awful lot easier to just pretend then it would have been to try to explain to Mickey this wasn’t working. He was hopeful, Ian understood that, and maybe he deserved to feel that way.

Ian wouldn’t have really minded the pills, because at least he didn’t feel like he was going to bounce off the walls, and it’d been awhile since he’d hated himself so much he wanted to explode. So maybe that _was_ progress, even though it didn’t feel good. So he wouldn’t have minded them, if it wasn’t for how much it affected his work. When he was happy, or just wired or whatever he wanted to call it, back before he fell that time, it’d been easy to dance. He’d enjoyed it, and everyone could tell.

Now, though, it seemed harder to make the money he used to make. He was going through the motions, and he wondered if Mickey saw that too. Because even though they never came to the club together anymore, Mickey always came. Some nights, when Ian was particularly insistent, Mickey stayed outside the whole night, running up some ridiculous cab fare while he waited outside for hours. That was the way Ian preferred it, because he had a hard enough time keeping guys interested in the way they used to be without them being roughed up for getting too close to him.

The first time the owner offered him the blue pills, Mickey was outside. As his hand opened and he thrust the pills out toward Ian, Ian thought of Mickey, wondering what he would say about this. “No guy’s gonna give you a second thought if you can’t even keep it hard for them,” he told Ian bluntly. His ears felt hot and red, but he couldn’t exactly pretend that it wasn’t a problem these days. “You take these and you give them the show they’re supposed to be paying to see or you get out and don’t come back. I’ve put my neck on the line for you more times then I care to fucking count and I’m not going to have you fucking anything else up.”

And Ian took the pills, because it wasn’t exactly the dumbest decision he’d ever made in his life. And the money came in a lot better that night, when the guys could pretend his shorts were so tight because of them.

His head was on this guy’s shoulder, his fist clenching the guy’s tie as his hips slid over his, when the man’s hand grazed his ribs. “Nice tattoo,” he said in Ian’s ear.

Ian’s eyes flew open, as if he needed to see the tattoo to remember it’s there – the bald eagle with the gun in its talons, the same tattoo five other guys from basic have, from that night when they all went together – brotherhood, or whatever they thought they’d call it then.

He straightens up, and the poor guy’s actually coughing before he realizes he never let go of his tie.

“What branch were you?” The guy asks when Ian’s finally let go, even though Ian isn’t even facing toward him. “I was Marines myself.”

Ian feels cold now, and he turns around to look at the guy. “I didn’t ask, you know. You shouldn’t be telling.” His face is stone, but the guy smiles at him anyway.

“You actually served at all, and you’d know that’s sure as shit not how it works.”

And, well, that’s the truth of the situation, isn’t it? He never even completed basic, but he’s looking at this man smirking at him right now and he _knows_. This man knows and it terrifies Ian and it thrills him and he doesn’t really feel like he’s here anymore.

“It’s been nice talking and all, but I’ve got money to make,” Ian says, because it’s what he always says when people get too weird with him. Because despite what Mickey thinks, he _can_ take care of himself here.

“And I’ve got more than enough money to be giving,” the man says back, because that’s what the guys always say when he says that.

“I’m an equal opportunity lap dancer,” Ian _should_ have said, because that’s what Ian usually says, before bumping into them in a not so accidental way so he can catch up with them again later and get that money.

But he’s staring at this man and he can’t even hear the loud ass music anymore, and the words that leave his mouth sound an awful lot more like, “Then come on, all that money calls for a bit of a more personal show.”

 

* * *

 

That night, as Ian walks out of the club, he finds himself wondering if he actually said yes during that whole time. He remembers grabbing the guy’s hand, and they went to one of the private rooms, and he shut the door behind them and pushed the guy onto the chair, and he straddled him and gave him a lap dance…and then things just sort of happened, didn’t they?

The window to the cab rolls down. “You plan on getting in sometime soon, asshole?”

Ian actually smiles when he sees Mickey, looking just as pissed off as usual. He registers, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he probably shouldn’t be that happy to see him, all things considered, but he opens the door and grumbles at Mickey until Mickey moves over, which he really doesn’t seem to appreciate.

“There’s a door on the other fucking side, you know.”

Ian doesn’t reply, just reaches into the shorts under his jeans and pulls out the money, glancing toward the front before dumping half of it into Mickey’s lap. “That should cover your fare tonight.”

Mickey stares at the money, then up at Ian. “The hell’d you do, rob a bank on break or something?”

Ian rolls his eyes. “Right, robbed a bank, and made out with barely a grand. Sounds reasonable.”

It’s a non-answer, and he can tell from the expression on Mickey’s face that he isn’t satisfied, but he grabs Mickey’s hand and guides it to his jeans, where the pill he took a bit ago is taking effect. Mickey’s hand snaps away as soon as he feels it, his eyes flitting to the cab driver, the same one Mickey usually ends up finding, who long ago stopped asking questions about the “I’m not paying you to ask questions or fucking look at me, I’m paying you to sit in your fucking car and play Sudo-whatever the fuck it is” guy who sat in his car all night and the redhead who always found his way into the car with him at the end of the night.

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey isn’t ever going to tell Ian, because Mickey doesn’t talk about stuff like that, but he’s noticed the changes the pills have made on Ian. At first, he doesn’t see them, and the day he wakes up and notices it, it actually pisses him off. He’s supposed to know these things, he’s supposed to notice how stuff changes, but it took him a really long time.

Maybe it was because it happened slowly. The first few times Ian takes the pills, he seems no different, and Mickey’s about to tell him just to stop taking them because they’re not even making any difference. Still, even when that starts to change, and there _is_ a difference, it takes Mickey a long time to notice.

But then there was the time Ian was being a right little asshole at the table, and his keep pawing at Mickey’s boxers under the table with his foot. And Svetlana came into the room, and Mickey jumped up so fast he knocked the juice on the table over. He felt hot and embarrassed and irrational, because Svetlana wasn’t going to see anything, and even if she _had_ , why did that matter? But it was how Ian acted, how he just got up and got a towel and cleaned stuff up and didn’t say a word to Mickey about it, ever, that made him notice. He should have been grateful that Gallagher finally manned up enough to stop whining about Mickey not being “open” and “free”, but it gnawed at him.

Once it clicks in his head, it starts piling up all around him. It’s as if he’s interacting with Ian through a paper curtain…he can see him, and everything’s still there, but it’s just…further away. He’s fuzzy and detached and Mickey wants to believe that it’s temporary or okay, but he doesn’t know.

He can’t tell Ian this, because the idea of saying he’s not whiny or sappy or giddy enough anymore is ridiculous. All he ever complained about before was Ian being _too_ much of this or that, so why is it a problem now that he’s not?

But then there’s the day they’re all sitting having dinner, and Yev is banging a spoon on his high chair, which irritates Mickey because it’s an annoying ass noise. It’s not like the kid’s even old enough to use a spoon, anyway. And then he bangs it again, and he loses his grip, and it flies and smacks Mickey in the hand.

And Ian laughs. God, he laughs so much, he’s gasping for breath, and Mickey’s staring at him the whole time, half mesmerized by this sound he’s stopped remembering and half alarmed.

It’s after that day that Mickey starts counting his pills. There are twenty-one in the bottle that day, they had just gotten them refilled not that long ago. A week later, seven whole days later, when Mickey checks as Ian heads to the shower, there are nineteen.


	4. Falling Out of the Sky

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Four – _Falling Out of the Sky_**

Ian can’t pinpoint the exact day he decides to stop taking his meds. One day, he wakes up, and as he trails his hand up Mickey’s stomach, he realizes he didn’t remember to take anything the night before. Fiona had gotten called in last minute for a shift at the diner, and he’d rushed over to watch Carl and Liam and by the time he’d come back he was tired, and he’d just fallen asleep before remembering.

His hand stills, and Mickey opens one eye, looking annoyed. “There a reason you had to wake my ass up?”

Ian swallows, looking up at Mickey. It’s this weird thing he does, sometimes, when he sleeps really hard. He wakes up and he’s lying below all the pillows, just on the mattress, all the covers kicked off. Mickey seems to notice this at just that exact moment, and he raises his arm, encircling Ian in the blankets again. Ian means to tell Mickey that he forgot his meds, but as Mickey’s arm drops, his fingers brush Ian’s side, and there’s this little electric spark that flows through him.

It’s almost as if he’s young again. It’s only been a couple years, but if he looks at it, he feels like entire lifetimes have passed since that day when he first laid side by side with Mickey Milkovich in this bed. How Mickey had hurriedly thrown the blanket over them when they heard Terry approaching. They’d touched then, too, and though Mickey probably hadn’t felt anything, it’d positively lit Ian on fire. And although Ian’s sure that one night off his meds isn’t enough to do it, this moment, that spark…it’s the most he’s felt in longer than he can remember.

So instead of telling Mickey he forgot his meds, he rolls over, pinning Mickey underneath him and capturing his lips with his. Mickey’s eyes are wide open now, and he pushes back against the pillows, as if to gain enough space between them to ask Ian what the fuck’s going on. But Ian doesn’t want to talk, because every point of contact between their bodies is on fire. He’s in sensory overload and it’s kind of frightening but he doesn’t care, he needs it and he’s craving it and he pushes harder into Mickey, desperate for him not to talk.

He’s happy that whole day, maybe not ecstatic, but happy. It feels normal and he misses feeling normal, so he doesn’t take his meds again because he wants the feeling to last. The next day he’s shaking and miserable, and he does take them…but after that stuff gets messy, and he can’t really remember when he takes them and when he doesn’t unless he thinks about it hard enough. Which he doesn’t, because thinking about his meds means thinking about being bipolar, and that’s not something he wants to do.

It’s a week or two before Ian actually has to lie about it. Veronica’s made this big dinner to celebrate the twins rolling over, because she’s become _that_ kind of parent, and Ian is looking forward to going. Lucky for him, Kev told Mickey he _had_ to go, and because the two of them kind of like each other that day, Mickey agrees.

It’s when they get in the car. Mickey looks over, and he says, “You…uhh, you got them?”

And it’s already become so natural to him to not think of them that Ian doesn’t even catch on. “Who?”

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Mickey replies, starting the car. “Not fucking who, you dumbass, _what_. You got the pills?”

For a terrifying second, Ian feels like he’s given himself away. But he just shrugs and says yes, and for all Mickey’s gallantry, he doesn’t mention them again that night. Ian makes sure to excuse himself from the table for just a moment after he’s done eating. He says he’s going to the bathroom, but he catches Mickey’s eye as he picks up his glass of water before he goes. And even though he doesn’t take a sip in the bathroom, because he doesn’t need to anyway, he returns to the table and flashes an anxious smile at Mickey, who seems satisfied that this means what he wants to think it means.

 

* * *

 

 

Of course, the night of Veronica’s party, when they get home, the first thing Ian has to do is piss, because he’s just that much of a girl. So Mickey takes the opportunity to slide the drawer open. The pill bottle is hard to find, buried under a pile of socks. Mickey counts them quickly, his hands shaking. _Nineteen_.

For a wild second, Mickey almost throws the pill bottle across the room. But that would be stupid, and he hears the toilet flushing, so he hurriedly dumps the pills back into the bottle and slams the drawer shut.

He studies Ian carefully that night, as the red head lays there, taking up most of the fucking bed.

Mickey wants to be angry. He _is_ angry, really, because today Ian flat out lied to him. And there may not be much that’s objectively _good_ about them together, but the honesty is. Or was. So it’s not really cool with him, that Ian’s lying. But at the same time, he’s been off his meds, and things have been…well, they’ve been good. He’s not trying to fuck Robo-cop anymore, the kid’s got actual emotion back, and though he’d prayed for years for Ian not to be such a damn girl about everything, he can look at him right now and imagine having that Ian back.

So maybe the Gallaghers were wrong – it’d hardly be the first time. Maybe, just maybe…it really was just a phase. Ian went through some shit – everybody does, don’t they? They struggle with something, and maybe it makes them a bit fucked up, but then they get over it. And maybe Ian’s getting over it.

Mickey lays himself down over top of Ian’s arm, and half asleep, Ian curls into him, his breath mingling with Mickey’s on his chest. Mickey can’t close his eyes, but he wonders if he’s already blind.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian tries a little harder after that to pay attention. He keeps a schedule on his phone, so he can get a refill when it’s the right time. He even drags Lip to the pharmacy with him, and as he hands over the wadded twenties and tens he earned at the club, he almost feels a little proud of himself for pulling this off.

He stares at the pill bottle for four days before it dawns on him that someone might notice it’s completely full, and he flushes half the pills down the toilet that night. The next morning, he wakes up euphoric, and before he gets in the shower he dumps the whole bottle he has left over from the last refill into the toilet, one by one, watching them splash in the water.

 

* * *

 

 

Six days after Ian gets his refill with Lip, Mickey wakes up alone in bed. He can’t hear the shower running, and there’s no sounds in the kitchen, so he wonders if Ian’s maybe out on a run. While he’s got the time, he opens the drawer, expecting to count out the same nineteen pills plus thirty in a new bottle that were there the last time he counted them a week ago.

But there’s only one bottle, and it’s got only twelve pills. Mickey rips the drawer out of the dresser, tips it over and dumps the socks on the floor, but there’s nothing.

“Gallagher?” Mickey calls out, then, tossing the drawer to the floor and flying on the bedroom, not thinking about what he might have to lie about to explain the mess he’s left behind. “IAN!” His voice is loud now, a little frantic, and he hurtles himself toward the bathroom. But it’s his wife and her little lesbian behind the door, and they look rightfully harassed.

“Why must you always shout?” Svetlana asks angrily, pulling her robe closed.

“Jesus, believe me, I wasn’t looking to see this shit,” Mickey says, half shielding his eyes as Nikka stands up. “You guys seen Ian?”

“Baby scream all night, not that you notice,” Svetlana responds. “Orange boy take baby, say he be back later.”

And Mickey wants to not worry about it. But he can’t stop himself from texting Ian, because he can’t help but think that somewhere out there, there’s a carrot top holding a bald little baby with enough lithium to put down a horse rattling around in his pocket.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s supposed to be running. Yev doesn’t really like being in the stroller, and he only sits still when Ian’s running. It’s a good motivator most days, but this day, Ian’s worn out. Everything was fine at first – he’d left the house and run down the road, and he’d run and run and he’d felt right…until he didn’t anymore. And he’d stopped so suddenly it’d scared Yev, but the sound was so far away Ian thought for a wild moment that the stroller had kept going.

He’s still right there though, the little red faced baby in the stroller, right there in front of Ian. Yev’s screaming at him, his little fists wailing on the bar that’s holding him in, and Ian’s sitting on the ground in front of him, pushing the stroller back and forth in his arm’s reach, as if that’s supposed to be soothing, but it’s not.

“Hey, hey, buddy, no, shh.” His words aren’t comforting, and as Ian looks around, he imagines it’s in part because he doesn’t feel very comforted himself. He’s tired and his breath is coming out all ragged and heavy, because he’s run so far and so fast. They’re a long way from home, and Ian knows his legs will give out before they ever get back there. There’s tears in his eyes, he thinks, because Yev didn’t used to be so blurry.

And Yev keeps screaming, the decibel of his panic raising and gripping Ian’s heart. He’s sorry, he means to say to Yev, but his mouth won’t form the words. Not that it matters. Yev won’t understand anyway. Ian tries to recall the words for “sorry” in Russian, because at one point he wanted to know them to say them to Nikka, for the whole thing that happened with the cocaine…but there’s nothing. His mind’s empty and he’s tired, he’s just so tired, and the sun is too bright and it’s really miserable out here.

“Here, come here.” Ian pulls Yev out of the stroller, and he finds a staircase on the side of a building that seems to provide some shelter from the sun, and they sit down. Because Ian wants to sit down. His legs are throbbing and even the few steps it takes to get to this shelter feel like they’re going to break him. But Yev is still crying and he doesn’t want to drop him, so he forces himself to make it there.

“Just for a couple minutes, okay?” He whispers to Yev, who’s still breathing heavy, whimpering and rubbing his head on Ian’s shoulder, as if he can dig himself deeper into Ian’s body if he tries hard enough. “It’ll be okay. Just need to sit down for a minute. It’s okay.”

It isn’t, though.

 

* * *

 

 

For the most part, what happens behind the sheet partitions at the Rub N Tug stays behind the sheet partitions. That is, when the people behind the sheet don’t crash into them and rip them down.

“What the _fuck_?” Mickey shouts out, more annoyed than anything. It’s the one black haired whore whose name Mickey can never remember, and she’s completely naked, her legs wrapped around a similarly undressed guy. “Jesus, nobody needs to see that shit!”

He’s near them now, grabbing the guy to pull him back, and as he stands, Mickey sees what’s behind them on the table they were using before they came crashing down. “Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?” He directs the question to the girl, swiping the bag of white powder off the table and dangling it in front of her.

“What is problem?” Svetlana is standing there now, always acting like the royal protector of the whores.

He glares at her. “Your fucking little whore friends need to stop bringing this shit into _my_ establishment. Jesus, can’t a guy try to make a somewhat classy place for gentlemen to go to get blown without there being actual _blow_ involved?” His mind flashes back to Ian and Nikka, and how Ian hasn’t texted him back today, and it pisses him off all the more.

Svetlana kneels down, helping the girl to stand. They speak to each other in Russian, and suddenly Svetlana’s rounded back on Mickey, her eyes fierce. “Is not hers,” she says, her fingers jabbing on the man. “He bring it, just like for Nikka.”

The man looks half terrified as Mickey rounds on him, and then he’s grabbing for his pants, and Mickey stays his hand by grabbing his wrist. “You’re not going anywhere, asshole.”

“N-no,” he says, his voice shaking. “Just…here.” His other hand dives into his pant pocket, and he pulls out a wad of cash – all hundreds by the looks of it. Mickey stares at the money, barely registering how the man shoves it into his hand. “Take – take it. There’s always more where that comes from. Just…don’t call the cops.”

Mickey is about to tell him he’s fucking stupid, because they’re standing in a goddamn brothel, how can Mickey _possibly_ call the cops, but Mickey’s phone is ringing now. He whips it out of his pocket, his heartbeat quickening as he sees the picture on the screen.

“Ian? Where the fuck have you been?” He catches Svetlana out of the corner of his eye sighing in disgust and pulling the other girl away with her.

“Mick.” His voice sounds so quiet Mickey has to push the phone to his ear harder to be sure he’s getting it.

“Where are you?” Now that the phone’s closer, he can hear a baby crying. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I…I think something’s wrong.”

“With the baby? Ian, ple – tell me what’s happening.”

“Baby? What happen to baby?” Svetlana is back in an instant, grabbing for the phone, but Mickey catches her arm and forces it away.

“Can you just come get him? I don’t think he should be here.”

In that moment, everything vanishes. There’s no more sheet partitions, there’s no more walls, there’s no Alibi, there’s barely even the ground he’s standing on. There’s Mickey and there’s this phone and there’s all this insurmountable space between him and Ian in that moment. Ian sounds so small, and scared, and Mickey’s already thundering down the stairs before he even realizes he’s moving.

“Just tell me where you are. I’m coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhh, these boys. I promise you, doing these things to these boys hurts me more than it does you! But I'm trying to explore a pretty dark place of Ian's life, especially since we're on the road to those 5x07 spoilers mentioned in the tags...the seeds of which are getting planted all along, but perhaps especially in this chapter. And I also really wanted to explore Mickey's feelings about Ian's condition here, and how he may have the absolute best of intentions (because he always does when it comes to Ian), but as we've seen in the past, he's not always the best as translating those intentions into things that actually work for Ian. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your kudos and your comments...you guys keep me so inspired, and it is amazing to get such great feedback.
> 
> Until next time!


	5. The Ghost of You

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Five – _The Ghost of You_**

Yev’s fallen asleep, finally sick of crying, and it’s actually somewhat comforting to Ian to feel his heartbeat against Ian’s own. Ian tries to think about how long it’s been since his phone died, but he isn’t sure anymore. At first, when Mickey’s voice had disappeared, he’d tried to count. He wasn’t even sure why it mattered, really, how long it’d been that they’d sat there, but he wanted to know.

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey’s running. Well, he’s kind of running – he sprints from alleyway to alleyway, stopping with his muscles tensed as he checks to see if _this_ is the alley Ian’s in. “Fuck!” Mickey shouts, for perhaps the hundredth time since he lost connection with Ian.

He hasn’t had much time to think. He’s been running and stopping and going and rushing since the moment Ian called. His thoughts seem to come in fragments, ideas of “fuck” and “shit” and “where are they?” and “what if?” It’s overwhelming and Mickey feels panicked. But he _has_ to find them, they have to be here, because if they’re not…

But then, now, he’s here. It takes him a moment to see them, but they’re there-

He’s running, ducking to his knees as he reaches them, his eyes flying all over them, searching for every dramatic injury he can think of. Just then, he knows what it would look like for Ian to be homeless. He’s pale, and he’s practically frozen under the fire escape of whatever the hell building this is. “Ian, fuck,” Mickey puts his hands on either side of Yev and goes to take him, but Ian’s muscles tense. “Hey, no, look at me.”

 

* * *

 

 

His eyes hurt, and he’s not even sure when he last blinked. He’d been trying to count and trying to remember and trying not scare Yev, and now he’s sure that in all of that, he forgot to blink. But his eyes find Mickey’s and all at once he loses his strength. “Let go, here, no, it’s okay.” Yev’s swooped away in an instant, and Ian feels crippled. He shifts, drawing his knees to his chest. “No – fuck. Ian, look at me.”

He hadn’t realized he was no longer even looking at Mickey, but when he looks up again, he sees Mickey’s settled on his heels, clutching Yev to his chest.

“I’m so sorry.” Ian’s voice sounds little and weak and it bugs him, because he doesn’t want to be weak. But Mickey’s eyes are wide as saucers and Yev’s not happy anymore. This is bad, Ian knows that. This isn’t what life is supposed to be, and Mickey isn’t going to forgive him this time, surely.

 

* * *

 

 

The words sting Mickey, and he finds himself shaking his head. “No, stop, you didn’t do anything. Why are you here?”

But all of a sudden, Ian’s moving, jumping up and nearly knocking Mickey over as he tries to move around him. “Fuck, Ian – dammit, stop!” He reaches out and manages to grab Ian’s hand, one arm holding Yev to his chest, whirling him around. “Fucking tell me what’s going on!”

“I was just…” Ian looks around, wildly, as if there’s something that can explain this. Mickey tries to follow his sight, but there’s nothing but rats and garbage and dirty water. Nothing that says this is okay, this is normal, there’s a valid reason for any of this. “I got really tired…I ran too far and I didn’t think we could make it back and I didn’t want him to get a sun burn and I just thought…until I felt up to heading back…”

Mickey swallowed, hard, trying to accept this as an answer. Yev was squirming in his arms, and before he could react, Yev started screaming, crying like he was being pinched. “Fuck.”

 

* * *

 

 

Panic gripped Ian at that moment. He felt dirty and ashamed and he knew, he just _knew_ , Mickey was judging him. Mickey wouldn’t understand – maybe he couldn’t understand – and he would never get that Ian was protecting Yev. And now Yev was crying and he was scared, and Ian hated hearing him so distraught. His hands tugged at his hair, and he stared at Mickey, who was rocking, trying to soothe Yev. But Yev didn’t like that sort of thing, he preferred being swung side to side. Ian thought for a moment about the day he’d learned that, when Svetlana had swatted him with a kitchen towel and demanded he swing side to side “for baby”, and how in an instant Yev had calmed right down.

“No, just –“ He reaches out, because he was going to do the right thing and soothe Yev, but Mickey stepped back.

“I’ve got it,” Mickey say simply, his eyes on Ian’s hands, still outstretched in front of him. Ian pulls his hands back, feeling like he’d been burned. “It’s not…fuck, Ian, stop lookin’ at me like that.”

So Ian stopped looking at him altogether.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian didn’t talk again until they were back home, when he announced to the wall he was taking a shower. Mickey spent all of a minute in the living room, mumbling an excuse to Svetlana about overreacting. “They just didn’t have money to take a cab and the baby was throwing a hissy fit in the stroller, he didn’t know what to do.”

He slammed his bedroom door, rubbing his face as he paced back and forth. This was so _fucked_. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding a mile a minute since he’d left the Alibi, and he’d run out of smokes on the ride back from that godforsaken alleyway.

He was still pacing when Ian walked in, a towel around his waist and a vodka bottle under his arm, already drank down to the top of the label.

“You’re not supposed to drink on your meds,” Mickey says automatically, and he wonders what part of himself he’d deluded into thinking Ian was still taking his meds.

“Right,” Ian says, and he has the nerve to laugh as he takes another drink.

“You aren’t seriously gonna play the pissy card with me right now,” Mickey says back, and Ian just looks away, his eye catching the socks and upturned dresser drawer. “Where are the rest of your meds?” He didn’t think he was going to talk to Ian about this, but now Ian knows he knows, so he might as well.

“Flushed ‘em,” Ian says, as if it’s obvious, his eyes still on the drawer.

“You fl…are you fuckin’ kidding me? When was the last time you took them?” Ian shrugs, and Mickey wants to scream. But the last thing Mickey needs is another fucking argument today, so instead he stalks forward and grabs the bottle from Ian, taking a long swig before looking at Ian again and handing the bottle back. “You can’t do that,” he says, trying to sound calm.

“I _can’t_?” Ian repeats. “That’s funny, because I did.”

“You know what I mean.” Mickey runs his hands over his face again, feeling very old and very stupid and very…alone. It’s a feeling Mickey doesn’t bother to feel often, but right now, standing only inches away from Ian, he feels like he’ll never have that feeling of ‘together’ again. He sags into the mattress, his elbows resting on his knees as his fingers attempt to massage out the ache in his head. “Why are you doing this?”

 

* * *

 

 

Ian’s vision is a little soft now, from the booze, but even he can see the defeat in Mickey’s every movement, and it makes him hurt. He stands by the door, water from his hair trailing down his bare back, and he feels as if there’s this wall between them now. He wants to step forward, to touch Mickey, but he’s paralyzed.

“Those meds…I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I don’t need them.”

Mickey’s head moves fast, his eyes searching for Ian’s. “Because hiding in a fucking alleyway with a baby for hours because you can’t make yourself walk is really that normal, Gallagher?”

Ian thinks about how much he’d like to hit Mickey just then. “I was protecting him.”

“From the sun? There’s a reason there’s that visor thing on the damn stroller.”

“He doesn’t like sitting in the stroller if it’s not moving.”

Mickey shakes his head. “I’m not arguing this with you. You can’t seriously tell me what you did was fucking sane.”

Ian’s still not really sure how long they spent under the fire escape, but it was long enough for Ian to wonder what it’d be like when Mickey arrived. He thought of it a lot of different ways, actually, but every single one of them ended with Mickey holding him, telling him it was okay, and somehow managing to shoulder this weight that was pushing down on him so that Ian could breathe for a minute. But now, like this – Mickey might as well be holding him down himself.

After he chugs a little more from the bottle, Ian watches Mickey, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I guess I’ll pack my stuff up then.”

 

* * *

 

 

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?” Mickey asks, standing up. “No one’s asking you to…Jesus, Ian, can you be _normal_ for five fucking seconds?”

“No!” Ian snaps back, and now they’re yelling, even though Mickey had every intention for this to not be that. “No I can’t! Don’t you get it? That’s gone, it’s done! It’s this – it’s me doing what I did, it’s me being a fucking zombie that can’t even feel when you touch me, it’s not normal, it’ll never _be_ normal!”

Even as Ian screams at him, Mickey can feel the muscles in his brain flexing, rewriting the words, casting denial and refusal all over it. It’s just temporary, he doesn’t know what he’s saying…someday, he’ll mention this to Ian, and Ian will laugh, and they’ll both be happy because it’s not anywhere as permanent as Ian thought then, as Mickey thought then…. “Stop throwing yourself a fuckin’ pity party, Gallagher! I am so sick of your stupid shit – you fucked up, okay? It happens! But you have to fucking try, just _try_ to get past it. That means you take your goddamn meds and if they make you feel like shit then fucking _tell_ me. Jesus Christ, have I not been right here this entire goddamn time?”

 

* * *

 

 

He’s not even mad at Mickey, when he sets the vodka bottle down and runs at him. He’s not mad at him, but all the same he’s swinging at him. His left fist connects with Mickey’s side, but Mickey’s reacted before his right can connect. He grabs his right wrist, then his left, and he’s pushing back, but Ian won’t move. “You – Ia – fucking _stop!_ ”

Ian’s panting, and he thinks he might start kicking him, but Mickey shakes him and he looks right at him, and there’s something in Mickey’s eye that stills him. His right hand’s still up in the air, clenched so tight his knuckles already hurt, and Mickey’s not letting go. “You back?” Mickey asks, breathing heavy.

“Fuck you, I didn’t go anywhere.”

All the same, Mickey lets go of him, taking a step back, his calves touching the bed. His hand ghosts over his side where Ian hit him. “I’m sorry,” Ian manages, because it’s what he’s supposed to say.

“Whatever.”

 

* * *

 

 

And just like that, Ian’s blown his load and he’s got no real fight left in him anymore. He turns, and he gets dressed, and Mickey doesn’t look at him then because he can’t, he’s so mad and so disappointed and so lost.

Ian crawls onto the bed, clutching the bottle, his back against the wall. He doesn’t speak anymore, his eyes glued to one of the posters on the wall. And after a while, Mickey joins him on the bed, and Ian passes him the bottle without looking at him. For his part, Mickey can’t do anything but stare at Ian.

He wonders if he can even make sense of all of this anymore. He’s trying to remember, to recount the number of times shit’s been messed up like this since he brought Ian home, and he can’t make sense of it all anymore. It’s disappearing so quickly now, these memories of things that are bad between them. He’s so desperate it’s disgusting – he wants so badly to believe this won’t last that he discards these memories, hides them away and won’t let himself think about them, because maybe then he can pretend this is okay.

“Are you not going to let me take Yev anymore?”

Mickey blinks, pulling Ian back into focus. “What?”

Ian turns, regarding Mickey with a boozey, slow blink. “Yev. Can I still take him running with me?” As he finishes the sentence, his eyes get wet.

Mickey swallows past the lump in his throat. “I told Svetlana you guys just got tired and wanted a ride back, so I don’t see why not.” Ian covers his face with his hands, and Mickey knows he’s probably crying now, but he doesn’t move. “But look, tomorrow let’s…we’ll go out, okay? You and me, and we’ll take a walk around and we’ll pick out a new route for you to run. One that doesn’t take you so far out, in case you get tired again. If you want to run more, just do laps or something, yeah? That way you can always make it back home.”

Ian peeked over his hands, his eyes red and wet. “Really?”

He sounds so hopeful and relieved and grateful that it makes Mickey sick. “Yeah.” He wants to tell Ian that he’s going to take his meds too, but he can’t. If he was Ian, he wouldn’t take them, and maybe _that’s_ why he can’t treat Ian the way everyone else would right now. “It’s not a big deal. You’ve been through a lot lately, and you pushed yourself too hard. Could’ve happened to anybody.”

“Right,” Ian says quietly, and it’s not sarcastic, which actually kind of makes Mickey sad. Because he knows that Ian knows this wouldn’t have happened to anybody. Ian’s eyes well up again, and he hides his face.

 

* * *

 

It’s hard to breathe, mostly because Ian isn’t letting himself do it, for fear it’ll come out as a sob. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Mickey, not after everything. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but he’s just so overwhelmed by how much Mickey doesn’t hate him that it makes him miserable. He wants so badly for Mickey to hate him right now, to shake him and break him and throw him away, because he’s dangerous and he’s destroying everything.

Mickey moves then, weighing down the bed on Ian’s side and tipping his slightly. “Stop,” Mickey says softly, and at first Ian doesn’t get that Mickey knows he’s crying. But the vodka bottle gets pulled out from between his legs, and then the hands are back, one circled around his legs and the other on his back, and they’re pulling him a little, until he’s tipped against Mickey.

It’s so suffocating and hot and Ian hates it so much that he wants to hit Mickey again. And he tries to move away, but Mickey’s grip is firm, and there’s this horrible, just _awful_ noise that comes out of his lips just then. “Shh, stop…Ian, stop.” Ian doesn’t want to be bossed around right now, and he keeps straining against Mickey’s hold just because he can. “Please.”

It breaks him, and he’s actually, truly sobbing now, his fingernails digging into Mickey’s arm. “You don’t get it,” he chokes out, his eyes shut tight as he tries to pretend he’s somewhere, anywhere else.

“Of course I don’t,” he hears Mickey say, and it breaks his heart because Mickey doesn’t even get how much he doesn’t get it, not if he can just respond all calm like that. “Doesn’t mean I have to sit here and do nothing.”

Mickey’s lips are in his hair then, and it makes him scream, no words, just this painful, evil noise. Mickey’s breath catches under him, and he doesn’t move. “I want out,” Ian begs, his fingers sore and his brain aching and every inch of him just melting. “I don’t – I can’t – I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to…I have to…”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Mickey says into his hair. “Just sit here. I _need_ you to sit here.”

_Damn fucking Mickey dumbass Milkovich_. Ian’s absolutely certain he’s never hated anyone more than he hates Mickey right now. Because he needs to go away, he needs to run and he needs to hide and he needs to never put anyone in danger again. And Mickey deserves so much better, after everything he did to be what Ian demanded he be, and now here’s Ian being this mess and he just _can’t_ put him through this anymore.

He’s ruined everything for Mickey, and he’s so sorry, and so he just can’t run away when Mickey says he needs him to be there. He owes him one thing that he needs, since he’s given him nothing else.

So he cries, hot tears that feel like they burn all the way down his face, and eventually they stop falling, but he and Mickey don’t move. He feels so tired, every inch of his body sore and broken and needy, and he clutches to Mickey’s shirt as he begins to drift off to sleep.

He promises himself he won’t ever do this again, that he’ll take his meds and he’ll be regular again. He hears Mickey’s heart thumping through his shirt and he memorizes the sound, begging himself to be better, for Mickey. He’s so determined and so sure he can do it.

He can’t, but just for that night, he tries to pretend he doesn’t know that about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we are, back again! Thank you once again for all your support and kudos and comments! It means so much to me! :)


	6. Just Like a Sledgehammer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Implied rape/non-con content in this chapter.

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Six – _Just Like a Sledgehammer_**

The next day, Ian tells Mickeys he wants to go back on his meds. So Mickey does what Mickey does, and he tells Ian he’ll buy the extras they need on the street to make up for the ones he’s missing until he gets his refill. He doesn’t tell Ian it’s an awful lot of money for even one of those stupid things, because he doesn’t want Ian to worry about money. He also doesn’t tell Svetlana he’s going to buy the pills on the street, just tells her the water bill’s due so she’d better work a little extra hard this week if she’s going to pull her weight around there.

It’s after lunchtime with the guy shows up – the coke guy, the guy that gave Mickey a couple hundred dollars just before Ian called. At first, Mickey just rolls his eyes about it, but then he realizes every girl is busy and now this guy’s just got wait around, and his curiosity gets the better of him.

“So where’d you get all that cash from anyway?”

The man looks at him for a long moment, considering him. “My wife’s got cancer, and she wanted to go to a really nice hospital, right? So I started selling…pays for all her bills and there’s still some left over for me.”

Mickey is hardly a judgmental person, but he can’t hide the look of contempt that passes over his face. Here’s this fucker, getting blown by these women while his wife’s sick somewhere… “So just ‘cuz it’s expensive, it’s somehow better? She’s better?”

The man laughs. “Count yourself lucky you’ve never had to figure it out, son. Healthcare…it’s all a big fucking scam. They’ve got cures for everything, but they only care to share with the people who’ve got the cash.”

He sounds like he needs a tin foil hat to keep the government from listening in, but Mickey can’t help but believe him, at least a little. He’d never let Ian know, but in that time he was down, Mickey did his research. He wasn’t going to let his fucking family take him away, but he wanted to know what the options were, in case they managed to convince Ian it was a good idea. Ian didn’t have health insurance ever since Fiona screwed up the job she had at whatever place that was where she did the boss’ brother, and it appeared from Mickey’s limited web search that sanity came at a pretty hefty price. He would die before he’d let Ian end up at the state hospital, and any place worth its salt cost more money than Mickey’d seen in his whole life. And sure, Ian was back on his meds now, but Mickey couldn’t stop the question he asked next. “Who you get it from?”

By the time Nikka’s free to take the guy to her spot in the room, Mickey’s got the name and number on a piece of paper in his pocket, and he’s busy folding the freshly laundered towels, pretending they never spoke.

 

* * *

 

 

For three days, Ian takes his pills. But then he goes back to work, and instead of _his_ pills, he ends the night with a belly full of other people’s pills. His head is spinning and he can’t even remember what they all are. He feels dizzy, and the last thing he wants is another fucking pill, so he decides to take the day off of the lithium.

“Exactly how fucking high are you right now?” He doesn’t realize he’s leaning so far forward, his head practically between his knees, until Mickey shakes him.

 _High enough to suck a dick and pretend it’s yours_ , is what he would say if he was being honest. He thinks, for a second, that he did say it, but Mickey’s expression just grows more impatient, so he must not have talked yet. “Huh? No…’M fine, jus’ tired.”

There’s three hundred dollars tucked in his shoe, which is pretty good money, considering he threw up a few times after he finished with the guy and it took him almost an hour to get back on the floor. Sucking dick pays an awful lot more than dancing, and Ian falls asleep in the cab counting out how many times he’s done this in the past couple months. It’s like counting sheep, he thinks dizzily to himself, and he’s pretty sure he laughs out loud at the thought.

 

* * *

 

 

“Look, you gonna buy it, or you gonna just keep staring at it?” Mickey demands, shaking the baggy in front of the whore’s face…he _really_ needed to try to learn at least a couple of their names.

She says something back in Russian, and he shakes the coke harder. “ _Eighty bucks_ ,” he says slowly, growing impatient. “You know I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying so give me the money, or get out.” Most of the women speak very little English, but when it came to money, they were like the fucking Rosetta Stone.

She glares at him, but then she reaches up her skirt and pulls out a hundred dollar bill. “Thank you,” he says, snatching it out of her hand and pushing the bag into its place. She stands there, expectant, and he waves her off. “Do I look like a fucking cash register? I don’t make change.”

There’s a huff, and some more Russian, but then she’s turning to leave. Mickey grabs her arm, pulling her close, ignoring the look of fear in her eyes. “Remember, you don’t tell a goddamn person where that came from,” he says, and she nods, even though he’s not sure she actually got everything he said. He lets go, and she hurries out the door. Mickey pulls the money out of his pocket, counting it up quickly and adding the latest bill to the stack. And then he’s leaving the bathroom, because it fucking reeks in there. He runs into Svetlana outside the door before he even registers she’s standing there. “The _fuck_ do you want?” He asks, brushing past her.

“What were you doing?”

Mickey raises his eyebrows. “You really need the gory details of the shits I take now?”

“Don’t be gross,” Svetlana replies, wrinkling her nose. “You were in there very long.”

“Yeah, like I said, you want the gory details?”

Mickey Milkovich is not ashamed of the fact that he’s dealing cocaine now. Under different circumstances, he would tell Svetlana, because it doesn’t matter. But she’s always got her hand in his fucking pocket, and he’d prefer to have one source of income she wasn’t screening on a regular basis like the Rub N Tug money. It’s a nice bonus that not telling her means Ian won’t find out, and _that_ , at least, is someone he’d rather not tell. Things have calmed down, for the most part, now that Ian’s back on his meds and Mickey doesn’t really need to take the chance he’ll freak out about it. There’s really no reason to – Kev is so busy with the twins he hasn’t even caught on to Mickey’s new hiding places around the Alibi. The coke never comes home with him, and it’s just easier not to have to fight about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian gets a little better at managing his high, after that night in the cab, and he starts leaving the floor a couple hours before his shift’s over, to sit in the back and come down a bit before he goes to meet Mickey. The money he makes from his “favors” in the back make up for money he loses by dancing less, so it’s hardly a problem.

Tonight, the mirror is really fascinating. His eyes are so big – were they always that big? His fingers graze the glass. He remembers how once, somebody told him you could tell if a mirror was two-way based on how your fingernail looked against it. He presses his nail against the glass and stares at it, but he can’t remember what it’s supposed to mean if it looks how it does, and his fingers slide down the glass till he’s trailing along his reflection’s stomach.

His fingers stop at the tattoo, and now his other hand’s touching his own body, his fingers tips numb from the drugs.

_That’s a fucking order, private._

_Funny, I don’t feel very private right now._

His skin stings, and his fingers jump away from him as he watches his own eyes in the mirror. The voice is so loud, and Ian wants to turn around, press himself against the cool glass and protect himself, but he can’t move.

_Tell me how you fucking like it, you little bitch._

“I don’t.” The words are soft, and he shouldn’t say them out loud. Is it possible the tattoo’s gotten brighter since he’s been back, he wonders, as he covers it with the palm of his hand? It stings, and he presses against it harder, the pain sending stars shooting through his eyes. _Stars and fucking stripes_. He’s hears laughter, then, and he wonders if it’s his own or not.

_I said sit the fuck down._

Ian flinches, and now he presses his hands against the mirror, pushing and pushing and wishing he could fall into it. Isn’t life supposed to be different on the other side? He wants to escape, because his head is too loud and it’s wrong, it’s all wrong.

_I will kill you where you fucking stand, Gallagher. Do I make myself clear?_

He doesn’t realize he’s not breathing until his hands are around his throat, clawing at things that aren’t there. He wants to come down, and he wants to come down _now_. This high isn’t nice and it’s making him remember stuff he’s supposed to forget, and he’s scared of it. He’s sick of being scared of it.

He stumbles to the bathroom, ignoring the people who are shouting for “Curtis” to notice them. He’s gripping the sink, and there’s another fucking mirror here. He stares up at himself, his lips parted as he breathes heavily, fogging up the edge of the mirror. His eyes are so bright, and he wants to take a drink, he wants to cover himself in water until he’s clean, fill the whole bathroom with water and just swim in it until he’s gone, but he just can’t look away from his own fucking face….

_Everyone’s got a family, don’t they? If you think the military can’t make life VERY difficult for yours, you haven’t got a clue._

He manages to get the water on, and he shoves his head under the faucet, the water freezing and hot all at once on the back of his neck. He’s gasping, the water running down the sides of his head and getting in his nose.

_You’re fucking insane, you know that? Do you even hear yourself?_

He’s clawing at the faucets, trying to turn them further, but they won’t budge. He needs more, this isn’t enough, he has to come down now, before he remembers…

_You know what? Go ahead, fucking tell them what you THINK is happening, I fucking dare you. Think that’s something people are going to believe, you tell them, tell them all._

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey’s pockets are nearly a grand heavier by the time Ian gets out of work that night, and Mickey watches him carefully, thinking he must have gotten caught dealing to the dancers and customers. He’d been careful, waiting till he couldn’t find Ian anywhere, but maybe…

“I quit,” Ian says unceremoniously after he nudges Mickey over and seats himself beside him in the cab.

Mickey raises his eyebrows, watching him. There’s water dripping down the back of his neck, and it hits the cracked, old leather of the cab seat. “And why’d you go and do that?”

Ian shrugs, resting the back of his head against the seat. He opens one eye and looks at Mickey slowly. “I’m better than that, aren’t I? I’ve got all this stuff going on in my head – do you know how much money there is to be made online? And I’m going to waste my time grinding on these closeted fucks when I could be squaring away my piece of the future?” Now both his eyes are open, and he’s sitting straight up, and Mickey swears he’s almost vibrating.

There’s this icy feeling that spreads through Mickey then, but he finds himself nodding anyway. And Ian’s off, talking about this website he wants to start and Mickey can’t even remember what it is he says he wants to sell.

Mickey had actually started to think stuff couldn’t get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes things have to fall apart for greater things to come back together...okay? Eep...these poor boys!


	7. Hear the Sirens Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Rape/Non-con references

**SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE**

**Chapter Seven – _Hear the Sirens Burning_**

Nikka’s a right bitch about the whole thing. There’s this phrase she keeps saying when she sees Ian – it’s all in Russian, and Mickey knows fuck all about Russian, but he recognizes it’s the same thing, every time, and the way her eyes narrow tells him it’s nothing nice. So she’s particularly useless about the situation, but for her part, Svetlana understands the shift that happens then. She’s quiet, quieter than she’s been in ages, and every time Ian comes back from wherever he’s been, she has the sense to take Nikka’s hand and take her to the other room, hushing her Russian exclamations with foreign phrases of her own.

Mickey would be grateful, but part of this relative silent treatment means she spends an awful lot more time just fucking staring at him, waiting for him to do _something_ , but whatever that something is she’s expecting, Mickey doesn’t know.

There’s a computer in the living room now. Or there _was_ , the day Ian dragged it in. Now there’s a monitor and a keyboard without any actual letter keys on it anymore, and all these panels of shit Mickey doesn’t understand that Ian’s ripped out of the stupid thing. He sits cross legged on the floor, screwdrivers and pliers and all these stupid tools all over the floor around him. And he’s not talking, not really. Just working, day after day, for no damn reason.

He doesn’t sleep, either, and Mickey knows this because now _he’s_ not sleeping either. Lord knows he’s fucking tired, but something’s messed up with the sheets and maybe Svetlana put the wrong sized ones back on the bed after the last time she did laundry, because surely there weren’t so _many_ before.

Most days when he gets back from the Alibi, Ian isn’t there. He’s tried to ask him where he goes, but when Ian talks, it isn’t about the stuff other people are saying to him. Mickey’s not even sure Ian hears him over his stories about how computers work and all this shit you can do with a microchip. It always ends the same way – Ian hauls out Mandy’s old desk light and spends hours combing over his arms, holding them up to the light, though he won’t tell Mickey _why_ the fuck he has to do that.

Today’s no different – Mickey and Svetlana walk in, and the living room’s empty. Empty, apart from the millions of little pieces of garbage all over the floor. Mickey stands there for a moment, just looking at all of it. “Ian?” he yells out, because he’s still so desperate to be wrong. He just wants to him he say something stupid and Ian-y, and come out of the other room, and just have this be over. “Yo, man, you here?”

“He left a couple hours ago.” He looks up, and now Mandy’s standing there, watching him. Everyone’s always fucking watching him these days, aren’t they?

Mickey nods, licking his lips, and then he’s laughing. What’s so funny about this moment, he’s not even sure. He wonders, briefly, if he understands how Ian feels now. Maybe he’s losing his mind too, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing, because maybe it’d be easier then, if they could just be crazy together.

“Mickey –“

But he doesn’t say anything back. Instead, he leans over, picking up the processor or whatever it was Ian said it was last night. Something in it stabs his hand, and before he thinks about it, he’s hurling it at the wall.

“Mickey!” There’s a mark on the wall now, and Mickey focus on it, because it’s the most satisfied he’s felt in weeks. There’s something broken in his mind, there’s something downright shattered inside of Ian’s, and maybe it’s time to break the world around them, too.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s laid out on the bed, not sleeping, when Ian comes back that night. He hears the door open, and he knows it’s him, but he can’t make himself go out there. Not that he needs to – there’s a lot of noise, clatters and bumps and bangs, and then he’s there, in the doorway. His hair’s a mess and his eyes are wide and he’s bouncing, staring at Mickey. “What happened to my motherboard?”

Mickey smirks a little. So _that’s_ what it was called. “Got smashed.”

Ian looks dissatisfied. He shakes his head, once. “But how did it get smashed? I…I left it right by the keyboard.”

“Yeah, on the floor with the rest of your shit. Accidents happen when people gotta walk.” There’s this bitterness in Mickey’s voice then that he hasn’t had for a long time, and he wonders when he started being mad at Ian instead of just feeling sorry for him. He knows he shouldn’t be angry, and he knows it’s not Ian’s fault, but Mickey doesn’t do this sadness bullshit – anger is what he knows. And so he’s pissed, he’s downright furious, and in that moment, he’s desperate to break down this cloud Ian’s found himself in.

Ian moves then, stepping fully into the room and slamming the door shut behind him. “Don’t lie to me, Mick. It was halfway across the room from where I left it.”

Mickey rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sick of stepping on your shit. Got in my way, so I got it _out_ of my way.”

He doesn’t look at Ian right away, but the silence gets to him, and he finally takes stock of him. Ian’s eyebrows are drawn together, and he’s staring at Mickey with his mouth open. “You had no fucking right to do that.”

“It’s my fucking house,” Mickey shoots back.

“It’s my fucking stuff!” And just like that, he’s set off the explosion. Ian runs at him, launching himself onto the bed, but Mickey reacts quickly. His hands find Ian’s biceps, clamping his arms to his sides. Ian’s legs land on either side of Mickey’s and they’re practically nose to nose. “Fuck you,” Ian growls.

“Fuck yourself,” Mickey responds, jerking his chin at Ian.

“No, fuck _you_ ,” Ian spits, his eyes wide and fiery and so not Ian that it hurts.

Mickey stares at him then, his own eyes wide and unblinking. He wants to see it – to see Ian somewhere in there, or to finally be convinced that he’s gone forever. Just _something_ that can tell him what he should do next. But all he sees is this rage and hatred and it’s insane and impossible…

And just like that, he releases Ian’s arms, and his hands grab either side of his head. Ian’s eyes are still open when he pulls him down, connecting their lips and knocking noses.

 

* * *

 

 

Every muscle in Ian’s body tenses, and he thinks if he pulls hard enough, he can get his head far enough back to land a serious head butt.

But then he’s being flipped over, and Mickey’s on top of him, assaulting his lips over and over as his hand’s fumble with Ian’s jeans. It’s when he starts to push them down that he finally breaks contact with Ian’s mouth, settling for nipping at his collarbone so he can push his pants down far enough. “Get the fuck away from me,” Ian tells him, because he means it.

“Make me,” Mickey responds into his chest, his hand snaking into Ian’s boxers.

The way they’re sprawled out, all Ian has to do is lift his left leg, and he’ll connect right with Mickey’s balls. That would work, but he doesn’t move, because there’s this fuzziness to his vision right now and _fuck_ he hates Mickey sometimes….

“Do it,” he grits out, his hands gripping the sheets. Mickey moves, his face coming back into Ian’s vision.

“What?”

“We had a fucking deal, remember? Anytime I want.”

Something clouds Mickey’s expression, just for a moment, then he’s smirking like the self-righteous asshole he is and sliding down the mattress.

_Suck my dick whenever I tell you too. That’s a fucking order, private._

 

* * *

 

 

Ian’s back tenses, and he’s mumbling, babbling about something Mickey can’t make out, and then it’s over, just like that, and Mickey swallows it down because that’s what Ian likes.

And he thinks, just in that moment, that this is normal. Maybe not normal for other people, but this is the kind of life he can have forever, and he won’t even complain about it because it’s better than no Ian at all.

But then Ian’s lurching away from him, his pants still around his ankles, crawling over to the side of the bed, and Mickey feels cold.

“The fu – Ian, man, what’s going on?” He moves closer, puts his hand on Ian’s shoulder, but he flinches away. “No, seriously, what the fuck just happened?” He puts his hand back on Ian’s shoulder, shaking him. “Gallagher, fucking talk to me!”

 

* * *

 

 

Ian flings himself forward in a sitting position, his one arm across his lap and the other tugging at his hair. “Nothing I…thanks, that was…thanks.”

“Stop.” Mickey keeps saying this to him, day after day, like it’s supposed to _do_ something. It’s irritating, and Ian can’t help but look back at him, glaring.

“What the fuck do you know about anything?”

Mickey’s eyebrows furrow. “Excuse the fuck out of me,” and he wipes his lips with the back of his hand, the spit still shiny on his lip.

He’s fucking up right now, Ian is. He’s fucking up a lot and he’s staring at Mickey with a face of pure rage and he understands that, but he can’t help himself. He wants to do this right but the words won’t come out of his mouth. He just keeps staring, because it’s Mickey here, and he’s at Mickey’s house and he could have sworn he wasn’t a minute ago. He could have sworn….

He stands then, scooting himself off the bed and pulling up his jeans, his back to Mickey. “Ian, come the fuck on,” Mickey says behind him, sounding so tired.

But Ian doesn’t look at him. Instead, he walks across the room, and he catches sight of the flag he helped Mickey hang – the American flag with the swastika instead of stars. He smiles, and it’s weird, because it’s Nazi stuff, and that shouldn’t make him smile. But he can remember the day after he got up that he found Mickey’s box of Nazi stuff in the hall closet and he told Mickey they were putting it up. Back when he was on his meds and the world wasn’t full of blinding light and electronics that hummed too loud. They were closing the Mickey-without-Ian chapter, the Mickey-with-Svetlana chapter, and stapling swastikas all over that stupid memory.

The red and white and blue blur in Ian’s eyes, and he hears Mickey talking to him, but he can’t even blink, let alone think, because his throat hurts now and there’s probably marks there again…but that wasn’t what happened this time, was it? He was here, and Mickey was too…and he was going fucking insane.

 

* * *

 

 

“Seriously, Ian, just tell me what the fuck just happened.” Mickey’s mouth keeps moving, these words keep coming out and he’s begging him, because he’s confused and freaked out and he feels kind of gross now. He’s staring at Ian’s back and his mind is flying a mile a minute, trying to figure out what Ian’s about to do.

And Ian opens the dresser drawer, his fingers sorting through the tshirts, and Mickey thinks he’s going to stop breathing, because this can’ t really be happening. “Fucking stop,” Mickey says, scrambling off the bed. “Don’t go, okay, whatever just happened, just…don’t.”

 

* * *

 

 

As his fingers tear through the shirts in the drawer, Ian realizes he can’t easily sort them out. Somehow, they’re all in there – Mickey’s shirts and Ian’s shirts, all wadded up together, and even a few that Ian thinks have never belonged to just one of them, always both. He wonders how this happened, _when_ this happened, how Mickey Milkovich of all people allowed himself to be so intertwined with another person that his stuff wasn’t even just his anymore. They shared a drawer and they shared clothes and they shared all this ugly, nasty, hellish stuff. Ian wants to disappear, and he wants to save Mickey, but if he can’t even separate Mickey’s t-shirts from the misery of a life he’s created, is there any way to save the boy himself?

_Don’t._

“Don’t what?” The words fall out of his lips before he means to say them, but he doesn’t turn around, because he can’t. He just can’t.

“Don’t leave, Ian, don’t.”

He can’t remember why he opened the drawer, just now, because the whole world’s shut down and there’s just this sentence. He sees the flag again, and he wants to cry. He wants to throw the dresser across the room and he wants to scream, because it’s here now. Mickey’s said it, and he’s done the one thing Ian needed him to do ages ago. But now they’re here, and they’re not back then, and even though he likes hearing it…it’s soul crushing. There’s all this damage and mess and disaster between then and now, and Mickey makes it sound so fucking easy now. He keeps saying it, “don’t leave”, “don’t go”, “just stay”…every single phrase Ian would’ve given up for, back before he ever left. So why couldn’t it have just been easy then, and they could have spared themselves all of this?

He sees himself, standing in the doorway, sees Mickey standing in the room. He realizes then he’s done it, he’s made Mickey his little bitch who chases after him, and it’s so much not what he wants that he thinks he’s going to throw up. But there’s nothing in his stomach, and there’s this thought in his head now that maybe he can fix this. So his fingers close around something in the drawer, and he closes his eyes, because he doesn’t think he can look right now. Mickey Milkovich finally asked him not to go, and it’s too late.

 

* * *

 

 

When Ian turns back around, he turns his hand over, offering his pill bottle out to Mickey. “Can you just keep these?” He asks, his eyes closed.

“S-sure,” Mickey says, stumbling over the word. He grabs the bottle before Ian can change his mind.

“I want you to make sure I take them,” Ian says, wrapping his arms around his stomach. “Every single day. Please.”

Mickey can’t help himself. He launches forward, his hand pulling Ian’s head forward. He kisses his forehead, over and over, just until he collects himself. “Every day. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

 

Svetlana stays home from the Rub N Tug the next day, saying Yev has a “leaky little baby pig nose”, so it’s just better that way. But Yev spends most of the morning napping in the other room, and Svetlana sits on the couch, just watching.

Ian leaves, and he knows Svetlana wants to stop him, and sure enough, he’s gone for seven minutes when he misses a call from Mickey, no doubt clued in to his absence by the Commie spy. He doesn’t call back, because he doesn’t have to. Ten minutes later, he’s back at the house, fumbling with his shopping bag on the table while Svetlana watches him.

He rips a garbage bag off the roll, and shakes it, filling it with air. Then he strides into the living room, and he can see from Svetlana’s expression that she’s nervous. But then he kneels down, scooping the bits and pieces of the computer into the bag in piles.

“Here.”

The word startles him, but as Ian looks up, he sees the hollowed out computer mouse he dissected last week dangling in front of him. Svetlana’s holding the cord, a determined look in her eye. “I help you clean,” she says simply, and Ian takes the mouse, tossing it into the bag with a small smile in her direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes...okay, that was a heavy chapter! Thank you once again for all your support and encouragement...it means the world to me! :)


	8. The Giggle at a Funeral

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

**Chapter Eight – _The Giggle at a Funeral_**

It works, this little life Ian and Mickey make for themselves, until it doesn’t anymore.

Every morning, before Mickey goes to work, Ian walks up to him and opens his mouth, showing off the pill on his tongue before swallowing it and showing Mickey the inside of his mouth again, empty and dry. At first, the notion made Mickey uncomfortable – it felt offensive and childish to watch Ian as if he couldn’t be trusted, but Ian did it anyway, so Mickey resigned himself to the idea that it was what he wanted.

Mickey doesn’t let himself think about whether it’s offensive or childish that he still counts Ian’s pills when he can.

Ian takes up a shift bussing at the restaurant Fiona works at, second shift, and he watches Yev during the day so Nikka, Mickey, and Svetlana can all work. Mickey calls him more than he might have, had they not lived the life they’d lived, but it works. Days that Fiona doesn’t work, Ian even takes Yev over there so he and Liam can play. He brings home food from the diner and he and Mickey eat dinner late at night while they watch a movie, and they fall asleep beside each other and wake up next to each other and when Ian comes back from his morning run, they take showers together (“Because I’m sick of paying so fucking much for fucking water, if you have to fucking know”).

And there’s this feeling around them that Mickey might have mistook for happiness, if he’d ever had enough of it before to know what it looked like. These things aren’t exactly normal, but it’s their life and it works for them…until it doesn’t anymore.

He’s sitting on the couch, watching some movie with subtitles, when he realizes he’s being stared at. “The fuck you want?” he asks, taking a drink of his beer before looking at Mandy fully.

Her teeth worry at her bottom lip for a moment before she looks over her shoulder. “We need to talk to you,” she says, and steps into the room.

“The hell is he doing here?” Mickey asks, standing.

“Yeah, lovely to see you too, Mickey,” Lip responds, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Surely there are still enough gutter hounds in this damn town you haven’t slept with yet, you don’t need to recycle with this shit.”

Mandy snarls at him, looking properly offended. “Fuck off, Mickey. Lip just wanted to ask me…we just were having a conversation about stuff, since Ian’s here and –“

Mickey’s ears perk at the word, and he feels angry and irrational on Ian’s behalf. “You have no business talking about him,” he fires back at her automatically.

“It’s not like that,” Mandy says. “Just, Lip was worried, ‘cause…”

“’Cause he thinks I can’t fucking handle taking care of him, yeah, so I’ve heard.” Mickey fishes in his pocket, trying to find his lighter and cigarettes. “Guess I figured _you’d_ come down on my side of the argument, though. His shit can’t possibly be that good.”

“Jesus, Mickey, you do realize some of us can think about stuff besides dick, right?” Lip says from behind Mandy. He’s smirking, because he’s trying to make some sort of fucking joke.

“The fuck are you trying to say, Gallagher?” Mickey had done Ian a favor, ignoring Lip’s existence for the better part of Ian’s return, but to _hell_ with Lip coming into his house, making fucking gay jokes at him…

“You two are so stupid,” Mandy announces, her arms folded over her chest. “Did you know Ian missed work yesterday?”

Mickey didn’t know that, but he’s still staring Lip down and his pride isn’t exactly going to let him admit that. “Well fuck, call the cops,” he says instead. “Someone doesn’t want to spend their night at that shithole restaurant, clearly they need their head examined.”

“Hey, Fiona put her neck out there for him, getting him that job, and he said he’d do it right.”

Mickey’s found his cigarettes by then, and he regards Lip coldly as he holds an unlit cigarette between his teeth. “Don’t fucking act like he owes her something.” Fiona, who lets her little brother make an evening snack out of her coke. Fiona, who didn’t even fucking bother to notice Ian was gone in the first place. Mickey would never tell Ian, because Ian _loves_ her or whatever, but Fiona’s name is nowhere on the very short list of people whose opinions he gives a shit about.

“Jesus, Mickey, could you just pull your head out of your ass for five minutes and listen? No one’s mad at him, we’re just worried something might be happening again.”

“He’s fine, thanks,” Mickey says then, lighting the cigarette. He’s quiet for a moment as he draws his breath in, considering them. “He’s on his meds.” It seems like an invasion of privacy to discuss Ian like that, while he’s not even there, but fuck if he’s going to let them go around acting like this without at least trying to stand up for him.

“He borrowed my desk light again the other day,” Mandy says quietly, as if that’s supposed to mean something. She doesn’t continue until Mickey gestures his lighter at her. “He never told you what he uses it for?”

Again, Mickey’s eyes find Lip’s, and he sets his jaw, determined not to be played like some idiot for his benefit. “I’d imagine he uses it to fucking see, Mandy, isn’t that what lights are for?”

She glares at him. “Back… _before_ , when he had the computer here?” She poses it as a question, as if she needs Mickey to confirm he remembers those days, as if he could _possibly_ forget those days. But he nods, impatient for her to continue. “He told me once then that the military put a microchip in his arm, and that any day, whenever they wanted, they could press a button from Area 51 and blow him up right where he stood.”

The words hit Mickey like an explosion themselves, and he has to force himself to keep his mouth shut around his cigarette. This is _crazy_ , he thinks, his mind turning the words over and over, this isn’t okay, this isn’t normal, this…this is Ian. “Fuck off, he was just messing with you.”

“You can’t be this deep in denial,” Lip says back as Mandy stares at him. “Surely even you’re capable of realizing that my little brother spending hours examining his arms so he can dig out a microchip that isn’t there is maybe, hmm, I don’t know…something he needs help with?”

“Then I’ll fucking help him.” It makes Mickey angry, the way Lip talks about Ian. _My little brother_ , like having some title to call him makes him Lip’s possession. He imagines a line taped on the floor between them, and Lip’s dragging Ian across it, claiming ownership.

“Look, Mickey, maybe you’ve done enough,” Lip says, and Mickey isn’t sure whether it’s a compliment or an insult, but their track record would suggest it’s the latter. “Maybe this is a little bigger than you.”

_There isn’t anything bigger than us._ “Maybe you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Maybe the solution just requires a little more work than carting him off to the first empty bed and straightjacket you can find.”

“Right, ‘cause excuse the fuck out of us for thinking maybe _doctors_ might know a thing or two about this that we don’t.”

Mickey laughs, flicking his ashes onto the table. Of course _Lip_ would think that was the fucking answer. It always came down to education for him – like college somehow made people better, instead of just more pretentious. Ian didn’t need a doctor, some asshole from the Ivy Tower, thinking he could shrink Ian down, make him smaller and easier to manage. No, Ian needed Mickey, Ian needed the only person in this damn world who understood how massive and all consuming he was and wasn’t foolish enough to try to change that.

 

* * *

 

 

The bell on the Alibi’s door gets Kev’s attention before Ian can even speak. “Mickey here?” he asks him, walking over to the bar. He’s technically supposed to be at work, but he called the manager and told him the stomach flu he’d had the day before was still acting up, and promised to work a double over the weekend to make up for whoever covered his shift.

He wasn’t sick, of course, and he hadn’t been yesterday either. But the idea of scrapping chili out of bowls all night just seems like a chore he can’t really handle today. That’s normal though, isn’t it? The lines between normal behavior and crazy behavior seemed blurred to Ian these days.

“Nah, man, is he supposed to be?”

Ian shrugs, because frankly he’s not sure what Mickey’s supposed to be doing while Ian’s supposed to be at work. But he’d been walking around for a couple hours now, and the Alibi had been much closer than Mickey’s house, so he thought maybe he should try there first.

“Hey, umm, thanks anyway, Kev.” But Kev’s already turned his attention to another customer, and it actually makes Ian kind of happy to be ignored. He’s spent so much time having everyone fretting over him that it’s nice that Kev, at least, is willing to see him as normal enough to ignore.

He should have just left, then, but as he turns to head toward the door his glance falls over the doorway to the upstairs apartment. The Rub N Tug, the place Mickey spends almost all his day, every day. It occurs to Ian, then, that in all the chaos and shamble of his life, he’s never actually gone up there since Mickey changed it over.

He takes the stairs two at a time, and he’s only halfway up them when the stench of bleach makes his eyes water. For all the smell of sterilization, the apartment looks a lot grungier than Ian would have expected. There’s sheets draped over clotheslines strung up all around the room, blocking out little private spaces for each of the girls. And there’s a desk, scratched up and crooked, pushed into the far corner, and it’s that desk that catches Ian’s attention.

Napkins and other scraps of paper littered the top of the desk, with random numbers and words scribbled on them. A quick glance at few clues Ian in to the fact that this is apparently what constitutes Mickey’s bookkeeping for the business. There’s a safe on the floor under the desk, and Ian’s pretty sure its holding one side of the desk up, as the legs on that side don’t appear to be completely attached anymore.

It’s not that Ian’s snooping – because really, he isn’t – but growing up Gallagher meant he’d developed a certain curiosity toward rooting out secrets. As a Gallagher, secrets usually meant that you either had an opportunity to get back the money Monica or Frank had probably stolen from yourself or your siblings, or it meant gaining an upper hand. And sure, Mickey’s not exactly hiding things from him, but it’s just what Ian’s used to. It hasn’t escaped his attention that this right here, this room, is the exact place Mickey goes every day with his _wife_ , and maybe that’s a little weird to Ian.

He tries a few different combinations – Mickey’s birthday, Mandy’s birthday, a few numbers Ian thinks he can remember Mickey mentioning before, the last few digits of his phone number – and then, the last thing he tries clicks, and the latch gives way under his hand.

Ian stares at the door for a moment, a little surprised, because it’s _Ian’s_ birthday that unlocked it. But then he smiles, because he should know by now that he can always count on Mickey to surprise him in the most bizarre of ways, and he can’t think of anything more surprising than this. He thinks he’ll leave Mickey a note in the safe, something not too cheesy because Mickey doesn’t do cheesy, but suddenly he wants Mickey to know that Ian knows the combination now.

It’s the money that catches Ian’s eye first, as he pulls the door of the safe open. It’s all shoved in there, twenties and fifties and hundreds, and some of the bills fall to the floor. But then he notices the plastic, and even though he registers somewhere that this is Mickey’s private stuff and he probably _should_ just leave it alone, he’s reaching through the money and pulling them out.

They’re heavily wrapped and duct taped, but Ian quickly finds a corner he can worm a finger through. He pulls it back out, the white substance practically glowing on his finger, and his breath escapes his lips.

He thinks of Liam, then, his little face and he wonders, not for the first time, what he looked like when they found him. Debbie told him once that there was cocaine all over his mouth and his nose, and Ian thinks he can almost picture it. He rubs his fingers together, spreading the cocaine out over his fingers.

Now he thinks of Yev, his chubby little face, and there’s cocaine all over it. His eyes are glassy, and Ian feels like he’s touching him. His skin is pale and freezing cold, and Ian searches his eyes, but there’s nothing there. It’s gone. Yev’s gone.

And he remembers Mickey, standing there, grabbing him and holding him back from Nikka, telling him that no one else got why he wanted nothing to do with this shit, but Mickey knew. Mickey _got it_. They were in this together and he was protecting Yev just like Ian was.

Ian doesn’t know how long he’s sitting there. He doesn’t really remember putting the cocaine back, or shoving most of the money back into the safe and slamming it shut. He isn’t really sure what he said to Kev when he went back downstairs, or how he made it back to the house that night. He isn’t sure whether he smiled at Mickey when he got there, or what he said to him before he collapsed into bed, pulling the covers around him and pretending to sleep.

All he knows is that Mickey Milkovich is a liar, a drug dealer, and cannot be trusted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ian, Ian, Ian. Trust me, I don't WANT to do this to poor Mickey, but in my opinion - the 5x07 spoilers can't happen unless Ian doesn't trust Mickey...so here we are. 
> 
> I promise happier times at some point?
> 
> Also sorry for the delay - the next week or so will probably be slow in terms of updates, but I am really committed to finishing this story before season 5 comes out, so stay tuned! :)


	9. Nothing Hurts Like No You

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

**Chapter Nine – _Nothing Hurts Like No You_**

Mickey doesn’t sleep that night. At first, he stays awake just watching Ian. Ian’s got his back to him, and Mickey doesn’t want to panic about it, but he can’t help but worry. Ian had said he didn’t feel so great, and sure, people are allowed to not feel good and all, but this just feels different to Mickey.

They lay there, Mickey just close enough that his arm grazes along Ian’s back when Ian inhales, slow and steady, puffy his whole chest up with air.

Mickey thinks about Lip then, and how easy it is for him to be so stupid about Ian. That’s the shit Gallaghers don’t get, because they grew up with fucking Frank and Monica, who flitted in and out of their lives but always, no matter how fucked up they are, always came back. Milkoviches don’t work that way. You push people away, you fuck up with people, and they don’t come back. You get one chance. Lip made it sound so easy, to just send Ian away and make him somebody else’s problem for awhile.

Lip didn’t have a clue. It was beyond any bounds of luck Mickey ever could have counted on, that he’d been able to get Ian back after he left before. There wasn’t another chance for that. He sent Ian away, and he’d be pissing away whatever this was supposed to be for them. Besides, Mickey thinks bitterly as Ian’s leg kicks backward in his sleep and knocks at his ankle, no one who isn’t at least a _little_ fucked in the head sticks around the Southside. Sanity and shrinks are a one-way ticket to anywhere but there, anywhere but this bed beside Mickey.

Eventually, even Mickey’s spiraling mind can’t keep him up, and he’s about to roll over to try and catch some sleep when his phone buzzes on the table beside him. He picks it up, angling himself away from Ian and hunching over his phone to block the light.

He doesn’t save the number in his phone, because that just seems stupid to do, but he knows it’s Rex, the guy he calls a “supplier”, though he’s not really sure that’s the right word for it. Wanting to know where his money is, just like fucking always. Mickey shoots a text back, something to the effect of “up your fucking ass, is where your fucking money is. I told you I’d have your fucking money, but I’m not doing business in the middle of the damn night.” He has the money – most of it, anyway – in the safe at the bar, but he can’t pretend he wouldn’t welcome a day or two extra. He’s grateful, truly, that Ian got out of dancing, but he wasn’t exactly expecting it. He’d taken a pretty big gamble with his stash, bitten off maybe a bit more than he can chew now that he isn’t peddling to a club full of fairies looking for a little extra magic dust. So maybe he doesn’t have the return on investment he was expecting. He’ll get there – the whores at the bar gobble this shit up – he just needs a little more time.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian doesn’t sleep that night either. He lays there, his back to Mickey, and focuses on keeping his breathing slow and steady, like he’s sleeping. He can feel Mickey, just there beside him, and he wants to scream. He closes his eyes, and he sees Yev and Liam, lying dead and pale in a pile of powder that’s definitely not snow, so he lays there with his eyes open, unblinking.

He’d throw up, he thinks, if he had the conviction to move a muscle. He feels sick, his stomach on fire and his eyes burning. The past few years play in his mind, over and over, and he tries to remember the day he decided Mickey was a person he should trust. Hadn’t Lip warned him, trying time after time to divert his attention to someone – anyone – else?

He gets frustrated, thinking about it all, and he kicks his feet, smirking to himself when he connects with Mickey’s ankle. Serves him right, laying there like an ass, as if he’s not shattering Ian’s trust with every breath he takes. So smug, thinking Ian wouldn’t figure it out.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s in the small hours of the morning that Mickey doses off, though his mind’s still racing and he doesn’t actually notice he’s fallen asleep until he’s waking back up. There’s a weight on his chest, and he looks down to find a mop of red hair under his chin, Ian’s arm flung across his waist, his knee wedged between Mickey’s thighs.

There’s a breath Mickey lets out that he didn’t know he was holding, and his arms circle around Ian, gripping tighter than he might have otherwise. But the pressure seems to wake Ian up, who squirms slowly at first, and then he’s up like a shot, knocking Mickey’s arms away as he scrambles to the end of the bed.

Mickey’s about to ask him if he’s okay, but Ian’s already up, his back to him as he searches for some clothes. “I’m going for a run,” he announces, and then he’s gone.

 

* * *

 

Ian thinks on his run, about how he’s going to move forward with this. He can’t play this little bit forever, pretending he’s not avoiding Mickey. He can’t quite confront Mickey yet, not without a lot of conversation he can’t bear to have, so that’s out of the question as well.

He turns the corner, his shoes slapping against the pavement, and up ahead of him the badge on the army officer’s hat glints in the light as he steps out of the car.

_You think we can’t find you, private? You’re the fucking army’s now, you little bitch._

He thinks he might scream, and he back steps, watching the officer as he straightens his dress uniform, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles.

_You’re fucking mine, you goddamn twink. I’m not telling you again – get on your fucking knees._

He starts up the walkway in front of him, and Ian doesn’t wait to see if he looks back his way. He crosses the street he just left, running as fast as he can, until he collapses in an alley, his hands on his knees and his breath coming in gasps. It wasn’t him, it _wasn’t him_ – he keeps trying to tell himself, as his vision blurs and he thinks he’ll never get enough air again – but he feels exposed, and there’s this weight on his chest now he didn’t have before.

He had planned to keep running, but after his escape he’s just a block over from Mickey’s, and he isn’t safe anymore outside anyway. In just a couple minutes, he’s thudding up the front steps of Mickey’s house, locking and relocking the door four times before it registers that Yev is screaming in the other room.

“What the fuck?” he demands, scooping Yev out of the playpen in the living room, glaring at Mickey, who’s just poking at shit in a pan on the stove. He bounces Yev, who’s red faced and gaspy, like he’s been crying for awhile, Ian making little shush-y sounds at him for a minute before turning his attention back to Mickey. “The fuck are you doing, leaving him here like that?”

Mickey rolls his eyes, jabbing angrily at the pan with the spatula. “Christ, he’s not fucking dying, alright? But you know what would have happened if I’d gone and babied his ass while I’ve got all _this_ cooking? Whole place woulda burned down and we’d both be dead.” Mickey shoots him a look then, all simpering and self-important. “Not that I think you’d give much of a shit about that.”

Well, Ian never exactly claimed to be that great of an actor, but even he thought Mickey wouldn’t piece his attitude together so quickly. As mad as he is, the slight stings, and he nitpicks at what Mickey says, more bitter than anything else. “It’s not really considered ‘babying’ someone if the person is an actual _baby_. Jesus, Mick, you can’t just expect him to take care of himself.”

“With a whore for a mother, he’ll have to learn how sooner or later.”

There’s no love lost between Ian and Svetlana – sure, they’ve reached an interesting sort of kinship, mostly surrounding Yev – but the comment incites him all the same. He wants to ask Mickey, just then, what makes a coke dealer so much more pious than a whore, but he chokes the question down, rubbing circles on Yev’s back. “You don’t have to be a dick, you know.”

“And neither do you. Shit, Ian.” He turns the stove off then, dropping a slimy pile of eggs on a plate before tossing the pan in the sink. Yev whimpers at the noise, and Ian tightens his hold on him, his lips full of venom for the boy in front of him.

“I’m not being a _dick_. Your kid’s fucking screaming and you’re too busy messing with fucking eggs to do something about it.”

Mickey rounds on him then, glaring with a fierceness he didn’t have before. “Yeah, _my_ kid. So how about you just quit fucking worrying about it, then?” Ian takes a step back, still clutching Yev to his chest, a little puff of a gasp leaving his lips. He’s hurt, but at the same time he knows he can’t be mad. It’s the words he never says to Mickey – “your” and “kid” right next to each other like that – the simple fact that they keep unspoken between them. Yev isn’t a kid Mickey _wants_ , Yev is a kid Mickey tolerates because he knows it isn’t the kid’s fault he exists. He tries, and never expects more in return then to keep acknowledgment of this fact at bay.

Ian almost laughs, because here’s the pair of them, biting at each other and slashing with insults because they’re both mad about other stuff. He thinks of what Mandy would say, if she saw them like this – something about boys being fucking idiots, most likely. He looks at Mickey then, and for just a minute, he remembers how he felt about Mickey yesterday, before he ever went upstairs at the Alibi.

“Fucking forget it, okay?” Mickey says then, flicking his lighter on over and over in his hand. “I’ll just turn the stove off next time, let ‘em get cold – just don’t bitch at me when your breakfast tastes like shit.”

Ian smiles in spite of himself, and sets Yev back in the playpen with his toys. They eat in relative silence, Ian not quite sure he can talk just yet. He thinks, if it can stay like this, maybe he can get past it. Maybe he can even pretend there’s a reason Mickey lied to him.

But then Mickey’s phone vibrates, and the expression he makes when he looks down at it on the table seems to mirror Ian’s own. He makes no motion to grab it, so Ian reaches his hand out, knowing he’s tempting fate. “This isn’t exactly fine dining, you’re allowed to answer your phone at the table.”

Mickey swipes the phone off the table before Ian can touch it, but he doesn’t open the message waiting on it. “Yeah, just…work shit. I’ll be there soon, they can just get the fuck over it until then.”

Ian draws his hand back, staring at Mickey. “Right. Work stuff.”

He stands then, dropping his plate into the sink, taking silent pride in not offering to do the dishes like he normally does. Mickey can do ‘em - maybe the detergent will break down the coke crusted under his fingernails.

“Wait.”

Ian whirls around, nearly out of the room, a wild thought crossing his mind that Mickey’s about to come clean, tell him everything – but Mickey’s holding out his pill bottle. The fucking _pills_. Ian stalks back over to him, jerking the lid off and dumping a pill into the palm of his hand. Mickey holds out his own coffee cup for Ian to use as chaser, and Ian considers pouring it on his head.

He studies the pill in his hand for a moment, flexing his hand to make it roll back and forth. Maybe _this_ is why he hasn’t noticed what Mickey’s been up to – dulling his senses, numbing him to reality.

Mickey’s staring at him, expectant, impatient – because of course this is what he wants. Grind him down, make him small, lock him away with Yev and all Mickey’s other problems so he can spend his days doping and dealing.

He downs have the mug of coffee, burnt-tasting and scalding hot, burning his throat as the pill works its way down. He thinks it’ll stick in his throat, because it feels so much sharper and larger than it did before, but it glides down.

They stay still, Mickey still expectant, until Ian finally rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, swirling his tongue around to show all angles of his mouth until Mickey seems satisfied.

 

* * *

 

 

_Hit a lead out of town. You’ve got three fucking days, or I start collecting – that little bastard of yours first._

Mickey writes out about seven different cuss-filled texts, threatening Rex with everything from a beating to full-blown castration and disembowelment, before he chucks his phone across the room, not sending a single one.

He tries to tell himself it’s not a big deal. Three days is a lot of time, and the blow’s more than half gone – he’ll hit the Fairy Tail tonight without Ian, maybe the White Swallow, and he might even be free and clear the same night.

It’s not a big deal.

 

* * *

 

 

He turns on the shower, lets it run until the water’s scolding hot, checking that the door’s locked, before he tries it. Ian’s never done this before, so it takes some finesse. He scratches his tongue, and his reflexes force his fingers back out of his mouth three times before he can control it.

But finally, he’s got it down, and he’s losing his stomach into the toilet, a grim sort of satisfaction settling his stomach as he splashes his face with water back at the sink.

_Let Mickey try to control him now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, am I the worst? I really feel like I'm the worst! I was doing so well with updating, and I was super expecting tons of time to finish this story...but then I started a brand new full time job, and that and the holidays kinda whisked away all my time! Which is no excuse! But it doesn't look like I'll actually have this finished before the season starts, which is very sad to me!
> 
> I should be able to update again next Friday, if not sooner. I am very sorry to anyone who was tortured by this wait - I'm not abandoning the story, but with a very full plate, it'll just take my some more time. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, even if it's torturous!


	10. Down to Old Rock Bottom

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

**Chapter Ten – _Down to Old Rock Bottom_**

_“I’m not lying to you.”_

_“Who are you trying to kid besides your fucking self?”_

_“Ian, be fucking reasonable here –“_

_“_ I’m _the unreasonable one? Jesus, Mick, look at yourself!”_

“Just calm the fuck down already, will you? Shit.”

“You selfish, un-responsible ass –“

Ian’s eyes open, and he wonders how long he’s been half-awake. Mickey’s saying something back now, his voice loud and angry in the kitchen, but Ian’s too groggy to comprehend. He pulls himself from the bed, shrugging on a t-shirt as he crosses through the doorway. Svetlana’s standing by the stove, Yev in her arms, an icy glare aimed right at Mickey, who’s leaning against the back of the couch, his arms crossed and eyebrows raised in challenge.

“You say you help and you _never_ help! I do all work and you, with your lazy ass, you sit and you do nothing!”

“Hey, everything okay?” The words nearly sound normal, Ian congratulates himself, as he flashes them both a small smile.

“Your piece of _shit_ –“ Svetlana starts, turning toward him “-I have to go work and I ask him, I say ‘watch baby’ and he say _no_ , he too tired. Stop fucking so much so maybe rest of us can get shit done.”

Ian chances a glance at Mickey, who bites his lip and looks away. “Yeah, sorry about that,” Ian says, giving Svetlana a look he hopes comes across sheepish. “My fault. So…I’ll take care of him, yeah?”

Svetlana pauses, considering for a moment. “You are not baby father,” she says sternly, and Ian hopes she doesn’t mean it as a slight against him. “Baby _father_ should care for baby too.”

Ian steps forward, holding his arms out, and Svetlana settles Yev in his arms. “He will. Yev and I’ll just let him get a little nap in and I’ll get him all wound up and pissed off and leave him for Mick to deal with.” Svetlana’s lip twitches, like she might smile at the idea. “I promise, we’ll give him hell.”

Svetlana glances over her shoulder, and the look on Mickey’s face seems to satisfy her that this is an appropriate punishment. “Two hours,” she says plainly. “Then asshole watch baby.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey mutters begrudgingly as Svetlana walks past him to grab her things. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, whore.”

Ian busies himself with bouncing Yev as he rummages through the fridge for a bottle of breast milk, hearing the door open and shut after a couple minutes more. “The fuck was that for?” Mickey demands as soon as the door shuts.

Ian looks at him over the fridge door, forcing his expression to remain neutral. “Just figured since you didn’t come home last night, you probably could use the sleep.” He shuts the fridge door a little more forcefully than he needs to, bottle gripped in one hand.

“I _did_ come home,” Mickey corrects, directing his gaze at the table. “It was like four in the morning, didn’t want to wake you up so I just crashed on the couch.”

It occurs to Ian that this might be an insult, a reference to the small handful of nights he went to the club with Mickey, and would come home high and horny and slithering into the covers to poke at Mickey until he got what he wanted. He holds Yev’s bottle steady in his mouth, his eyes boring into Mickey’s temple. “Right. Well, whatever it was that kept you out so late, you look like shit, so the sleep would probably do you good. Yev and I can go for a run, grab some coffee, be back to do something later.”

 

* * *

 

At Ian’s declaration, Mickey’s sure every possible sign of exhaustion amplifies itself on his face. He’s so tired, he thinks he can actually feel the weight of the bags under his eyes sagging. He didn’t actually make it back at four – it might have been more like seven – but it’s all the same to Ian, who seems to know he’s lying anyway.

He doesn’t respond right away, because he doesn’t think he can. Ian starts to walk by him then, seemingly deciding that Mickey’s silence is all the answer he needs, and Mickey reaches out, stopping him with a hand on his arm.

His eyes find Ian’s, and he sees something he thinks is a challenge in them. “Meds first, yeah?” He says, quietly. Mickey wonders in that moment if he’ll ever stop feeling like he’s betraying Ian when he enforces the meds.

Ian blinks, once, then twice, and on the third blink he’s spun on his heel, stalking over to the drawer under the sink. He maneuvers the baby, bouncing him up and down to stifle his whines now that the bottle’s out of his mouth. He gets the cap off with one hand after some fussing, pops a pill in his mouth, and sticks his head under the faucet to get a drink of water.

“Satisfied?” he asks as he turns around, and Mickey can only nod. His brain’s foggy, exhausted, and he thinks if he opens his mouth he’ll end up telling Ian the truth.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian’s certain he can fill the pill sitting in his stomach, and he wonders for a moment if he’ll be sick right then and there. But he forces his lips into a smile, something he hopes says _I’m so sane and amazing because of these wonderful pills that I totally keep in my system all day long_ without having to use the words.

He thinks he’ll make it past Mickey this time, but Mickey’s hand is on his arm against like a shot. “What now?” Ian demands, annoyed. Every second that pill is in him is another second he belongs to somebody else, and he’s tired of it. He wants it out, and it has to be _now._

Mickey pulls a little, until Ian’s body is directed toward his. “Everything cool?” He’s searching Ian’s eyes, and Ian speaks Milkovich-ese enough to know what Mickey’s asking – _are we okay?_ He won’t say the words, because that requires a lot more sentimentality then he’ll ever manage.

Ian thinks he could tell him the truth. Just blurt it out – _you’re a fucking liar and you don’t deserve any of this_ – but the words are caught in his stomach, squashed under the fucking pill Mickey makes him take to keep him out of the way and dumb to everything that’s happening. And if Mickey’s going to play games, lie and sneak around, then so the fuck will Ian, he decides instead. He leans forward, swinging his hip out enough to keep Yev out of the way, and presses his lips against Mickey’s cheek. Mickey turns, just ever so slightly, leaning into the contact.

He breaks the kiss just as quickly as he started it, his face centimeters from Mickey’s. “Cooler than cool, Mick,” he whispers, and he thinks Mickey actually shivers a little as his breath touches his skin. “Ice cold, even.” He straightens up, smiling at his own cleverness. “See you later, yeah?”

“Later,” Mickey responds, sounding all at once tired and sad and lost and it makes Ian feel good, because at least he’s maybe a little guilty about what he’s done.

Ian and Yev are two houses down the road before Ian spins the stroller around to shield Yev’s view and makes himself puke in the neighbor’s bush.

 

* * *

 

 

His pockets are still fat with the money he made the past couple nights – but it’s not _enough_. Yesterday he’d had to go refill Ian’s meds, and he’s spent all night trying to make up for the cut of Rex’s money the script had taken. He only had one night left to make this happen, and his odds didn’t look good.

He lays down in their bedroom, pulling the blankets up around his chest, but sleep doesn’t come. He’s so fucking exhausted he thinks he’s too tired to even fall asleep, which seems pretty fucked up to him.

There’s the monster of rage boiling inside of him – the anger’s been about the only thing keeping him up these past couple nights. At first, he thinks he’s still mad at Rex for threatening to kill the baby, but it’s somewhere in the early hours of the first night that he realizes he’s mad at Ian.

He thinks about it, because it’s easier to be in a place like the Fairy Tail if he ignores the dancers and focuses on Ian, and he thinks about what it would have been like if he could have told Ian about all this. He feels bitter, stupid, selfish – because he thought the whole point of coming out like he did was so they could actually be a _team_ or some shit. Mickey didn’t expect he’d have to keep secrets like this, and if he was honest with himself, he hated that Ian couldn’t be trusted to handle this. He hated _Ian_ for not being stable, and he hated himself even more for thinking that, because he knew better than that.

He smokes half a pack of cigarettes laying there, just fuming and planning, before he gets up and gets dressed, not showering. He’ll sleep when the money’s made.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian doesn’t feel much like running, so he wheels Yev to the coffee shop at a slow pace, and orders himself a coffee before he settles himself and Yev into a table. He angles Yev’s stroller toward the table, and contents himself with blowing into the hole on the cup’s lid to cool his drink, his eyes unfocused as he stares straight ahead.

There’s a lot of thoughts in his head today, and Ian wants to be happy about that, because it means the meds are finally flushing out of his system, and he’s waking up for real now. His hands tingle, little electric sparks running down his arms to his fingernails, like every cell in his body is waking up. He tries to pin his thoughts down, collect them and organize them into some sort of coherent string of knowledge, but it’s more difficult then he thinks it used to be. Probably because of those pills, they slowed his brain down and made it all mushy and now he can’t make it work like he used to.

“You drop your toy, buddy?” Ian’s head snaps in Yev’s direction, and there’s this man here Ian didn’t notice before, down on his knees grabbing something off the ground. “Here’s your…hmm. I didn’t know they even made plush toys in the shape of a handgun.”

His face is mostly angled away from Ian’s at first, his salt and pepper hair thinning in the back, but he turns toward Ian then, holding the toy out in front of Yev, who drools in response, his hands flexing on the bar holding him in. “Yeah, uhh…his dad’s brother got it for him. They’re…hunters, I guess.”

The man’s eyebrows draw together just a fraction of an inch, before he nods. “Think he got it online?” Ian shrugs, even though he’s fairly certain Iggy doesn’t know how to use a computer, because it’s hardly this guy’s business. He shifts in his seat, and for just that second, he wishes Mickey was there, because he’d have already told the guy to fuck off. “My wife and I, our son’s fifteen months, and I’m due up for my second deployment here at the end of the month…might be a cool going away gift.”

_Everyone’s got a family, don’t they? If you think the military can’t make life VERY difficult for yours, you haven’t got a clue._

_Where the fuck you think you’re gonna go that we can’t find you, private?_

Ian stiffens in his seat, his hand flinging out to grip the bar on the front of Yev’s stroller. “You’re army?” He asks, his voice an octave higher than it was before.

“’Till I die, at this rate.”

Ian’s jerking forward then, his elbow knocking into his coffee cup. He hears the liquid splash against the table and drip onto the floor, but he’s still moving, pushing Yev just out of reach of the man and standing between them. “Right, that’s…that’s great. Uhh, you know what? You keep that, I’ll just get a new one. Kid’s blown another diaper, smells like, so I’ll be right back.” He frees Yev from the stroller and strides past the man in one fluid motion, not looking back. “Come ‘ere, bud,” he says, softly, urgently, pressing Yev close to his chest as he uses his shoulder to open the bathroom door.

He stops in front of the mirror, his eyes focused on Yev’s in the mirror, his breath shaky.

_You got a death wish, private? ‘Cuz I can make that happen, you wanna fucking play games with me._

“No,” Ian whispers before he realizes he’s saying it out loud. His head hurts, and the lights are too bright. Yev whines in his arms, his bottom lip trembling, and Ian grips him harder. “No, bud, we can’t cry, okay? We gotta stay calm.” He looks back at the mirror, catching his own eyes this time, large and wild. “We gotta just relax and figure out how we’re getting out of this, okay?”

 

* * *

 

 

“You fucking come here to buy shit, or what? This ain’t a fucking blow exhibition.” Mickey nudges at the bundle of coke in front of him with one hand, glaring at the man in front of him, who looks up at him with an expression of fear.

“B-buy, I guess.”

“Then you either give me my three hundred, or you get the fuck out of here.” The man is reaching in his pocket when Mickey feels his phone vibrate in his own. “Fuck, hold on.” He pulls the phone out, and there’s that fucking picture of Ian flipping him off, the little green and red phones underneath. “Shit.”

The man’s got the money out then, holding it out with a shaking hand, so Mickey stabs at the red button and dumps the phone back in his pocket.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Yeah, you’ve reached Mickey, and instead of leaving a message, how about you just fuck off?_ ” The phone beeps in Ian’s ear, and he opens his mouth, but words don’t come out. So he hangs up, and it’s as he’s putting the phone back in his pocket that he sees the door start to open.

He moves quick, jumping into the nearest stall and sliding the latch shut just as two men enter the bathroom. One goes to stand at the urinal, and Ian can’t quite see him anymore, but he can just make out a sliver of the other’s back as he stands at the sink.

“You gonna have to piss every half hour all day?” he asks the first guy, who tells him to “screw himself”.

“ _We’ve got a call about a drug bust on Seventh and Franklin. Looks like we’ve got quite the raid. Available officers please respond._ ” Ian shifts, turning just enough to see the man’s shoulder, and the black rectangle perched on top of it.

“You almost done over there, Waterboy?” The guy taking a piss must nod, because a minute later he presses on the radio and says, “Martin and I are on our way.”

“ _Be advised perp has a baby, less than a year old. Looks like some other officers have caught the mother downtown on some other charge, so if you find the kid bring it in. We’ve got DFS on call._ ”

He feels Yev stir, and he clamps his hand over Yev’s mouth before he can make a sound. There’s a muffled whimper under his fingers, and Ian backs up, the back of his knee colliding painfully with the toilet bowl.

“Fucking crack babies,” the man at the urinal says. There’s the sound of a zipper being closed, and then he’s talking again. “Least whatever shithole that kid ends up in will be better than the shit he probably sees now, right?” They leave without washing their hands.

Ian doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until his vision starts to blur. He sits down then, clutching Yev as tight as he can, screwing his eyes shut and trying to force himself to stay calm.

_They’re going to take Yev. They’re going to arrest Mickey, Svetlana too, and Yev will end up who knows where and they’ll all be gone._

Tears sting Ian’s eyes and he bites down on his fist to keep from screaming. He thinks of all the homes he’s been in throughout the years, the group home the last time, and he tries to strengthen his resolve. That’s not a life he’s going to let Yev have.

Yev’s had about enough of being restrained in a bathroom stall, and he’s crying now. Ian recognizes the cry as Yev’s precursor to full-on shrieking, and there’s no comforting that for a good forty minutes. _They’ll catch us_. He remembers the military man probably waiting for them out front, and he almost loses his breath.

“Hey, you wanna go for an adventure, Yevvy?” He’s never really called Yev that before, and if the look on Yev’s little red face is any indication, it isn’t a nickname worth repeating. But Ian’s not bigger things to worry about.

He places his hand over Yev’s mouth again, his thumb and index finger soaked with hot and angry baby tears by the time he reaches the bathroom door. If he makes a right, he’ll be back out in the main area, back where the stroller and diaper bag are, but the military guy’s there too, so despite the fact that Ian could really _use_ those things right now, he darts to the left, pausing only for a moment to consider his choices before barreling through the _WARNING: EMERGENCY EXIT – ALARM WILL SOUND_ door at the back of the hallway.

The sound of the alarm is dull from outside, and Ian thinks he hears the sprinklers turn on inside the building before he’s off, one arm underneath Yev and the other holding his head against Ian’s chest as he runs, sprinting down the alley.

He runs as far as he can for someone who has more or less stopped breathing along the way, until he finds himself on a busy street, where he forces himself to walk slow and normal. Every muscle in his legs aches, straining to get him and Yev as far away as they can, because he can sense it so strongly now - _danger, danger_ _everywhere_.

Lucky for Ian and his lungs that can’t take another sprint like the one he just did, Jimmy-Steve taught him how to jack a car a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early premiere day, everyone! As a special treat, here's this extra long chapter! Strap in folks, 'cuz we're getting to the good part!


	11. Where is Your Boy Tonight?

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

**Chapter Eleven – _Where is Your Boy Tonight?_**

It’s well after dark by the time Mickey’s run out of people to sell to. He cuts through the alley by his house, smoking his third cigarette in the last half hour. He’s still sixty dollars short, but that should be easy – he’ll bum twenty off Mandy, borrow twenty for Ian, and figure out some excuse why the Scissor Sisters owe him ten bucks each – and finally, _finally_ , this will be over with. Then maybe he’ll take a holiday from the drug business – not permanent or anything, but with the fucking week he’s had maybe he’s allowed a little sabbatical.

It doesn’t seem odd to him that Svetlana’s smoking on the front porch, at first. Perhaps the only thing that’s a bit weird is how she’s still wearing pants. Something in her expression sharpens as she spots him. “He’s not with you?” The edge her voice has isn’t one that Mickey recognizes, but it stops him just short of the fence anyway.

“Who the fuck are you talking about?” Mickey’s tired, and his temper’s probably even shorter than usual.

“Baby.”

“Lose your mind? You were there this morning when Ian said he’d take him.”

“He said couple hour. Then _you_ take baby. You no take baby?”

True, Ian had said something about bringing coffee back, but Mickey had left before he’d returned. He drops his finished cigarette to the ground, smashing it with his food. “Look, whatever, things came up. Ian just watched him a little longer, alright? Fucking chill.”

“Baby has bed time,” Svetlana says angrily. “You get baby back here. Now.” She turns on her heel, storming into the house.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s almost nine hours later when Mickey finally returns the call Ian made to him in that bathroom. Ian’s phone is sitting in the passenger seat, and the screen lighting up catches his attention. Fast as lightening, Ian punches the red button to end the call, glancing in the rearview mirror at Yev. “Guess your daddy’s finally on his one phone call,” he tells Yev, who’s blowing spit bubbles at his reflection in the little padded mirror attached to his car seat. It was luck that Ian could find this car – sure, the car seat in the back was clearly made for a baby girl, with its pink padding and pictures of princesses all over it – but it was better than no car seat at all.

“That’s what they don’t tell you in the movies,” he keeps explaining, “if no one answers your first call, they let you make another one. We can’t do anything for him right now, you know? ‘Cause we’ve gotta keep you safe. He can call Mandy, or Iggy, or someone…and I’ll protect you, till your mom and dad get sprung.”

Because that’s all this was. Ian and Yev, just going on a little adventure. Ian had picked the destination about four hours in – Disney World. So that way, years from now, when Yev could ask about it and everything had blown over, this would just be that time that Ian took Yev on a trip to Disney World, and _not_ the time that Daddy and Mommy got arrested for selling blow and blowing dudes.

 

* * *

 

 

“Man, where the fuck are you?” Mickey yells at Ian’s voicemail, when he’s called him for the third time. “Look, Svetlana’s flipping a shit because no one’s heard from you all day. Just give me some idea when you guys are coming home, alright? Mandy’s bringing us dinner from that waffle house, chicken or some shit.”

He hangs up, dropping his phone to the table while his other hand kneads at his aching head. Ian’s always had a flair for the dramatics, but this is over the top, even for him.

“Still no answer?” Svetlana’s leaning against the doorframe, watching him with her arms crossed.

“Obviously there was no fucking answer, did that sound like I was talking to someone who was actually on the fucking phone?”

She bristles, her nostrils flaring briefly. “I want baby back.”

“Yeah, yeah, so you keep fucking saying,” Mickey grounds out at her, as one hand digs around in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. But there’s nothing but air inside the package. “Fuck,” Mickey spits, crumbling the paper and tossing it at the wall.

 

* * *

 

In nine hours, Ian has stopped at five truck stops. It’s amazing what guys stuck on solo road trips across the country will pay for a blow job from a skinny little red head, and Ian’s got more than enough for a pizza, a two liter, and a night at the most questionable looking motel he can find right off the highway. He puts the rest in his shoe for safe keeping.

He gets a few extra threadbare blankets from the front desk and crafts a makeshift bumper for Yev on the end of the bed. He finds Yev a cartoon, something colorful and full of actors who can’t possibly be paid enough for this garbage, and Yev contends himself with staring blankly at the tv and drooling all over his fist.

It’s then, a belly full of three and half slices of pizza a half a bottle of Coke, that Ian listens to his voicemails, three different messages from Mickey. His voice seems to raise in pitch, and fury, with each message. But it’s what he says in the last one, about Mandy bringing them chicken from the waffle house, that causes Ian’s forehead to wrinkle.

They don’t let you have squirrel-themed waffle house chicken in prison.

 

* * *

 

 

He misses the first two rings, because the front door’s opening at the same time and the sounds mingle with each other, but by the third ring Mickey hears it clearly.

“Ian? Gallagher? What the fuck? Where the fuck are you?” There’s all these words spilling out his mouth, and he knows he should shut up, because it’s not like Ian can tell him where he is if Mickey’s talking the whole time, but he’s bursting at the seams.

“Carrot boy?” Svetlana’s flying at him then, springing from her spot on the couch, and Mickey holds his hand out in front of him to keep her back.

“You’re okay?” Mickey could have predicted a lot of ways Ian might respond to him, but this was not one of them.

“I – what the fuck are you talking about?”

“The cops, they…you’re at home?”

“Ian, fuck – yes, I’m at home. I’m not the one missing! Where the fuck _are_ you?”

“I…Svetlana, they got her?”

Mickey glances at Svetlana, wondering for the briefest of seconds if he’s the one that’s missing something here, and maybe everyone else knows what’s going on. “She’s right here, where are _you_?”

There’s a silence on the other end, except for Ian’s breathing, quick and shaky. Mickey’s about to ask again when Ian’s voice is back, more urgent now. “I can’t talk long. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Fuck, Ian – Ian! Tell me where the fuck you and the baby are!”

Svetlana’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist now, and he’s half shoving her to keep her away from the phone.

“I gotta go. We’re okay, though. I’m protecting him. Yev’s watching that movie you turned off the other day – with the polka dotted elephant? Remember?” He laughs, just once. “I’ll try to call you again, okay? But you gotta be careful. They know.”

“Know – know what? Ian, what the fuck? Where are you?”

“Let me talk to him!” Svetlana’s screaming at him now, and Mickey becomes vaguely aware of the fact that this isn’t the first thing she’s said.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Galla –“

“Stay safe.”

“Ian!” He’s screaming at nothing now, but he can’t stop himself. “Ian! Fuck! _Fuck!_ ” He throws the phone, knowing he shouldn’t, because how’s Ian ever gonna get in touch with him again if the phone’s all smashed to bits.

“Where is my _baby_?” Svetlana’s got a look in her eyes, watery and large, that Mickey’s never seen before.

“Fuck off,” Mickey growls at her, ripping his arm out of her grasp and barreling past Mandy, who’s standing there with a large bag in her arms, looking terrified.

He slams the door to his bedroom so hard it just bounces off the frame, and he’s pacing back and forth in the tiny little room, flinging his arms in frustration, before he notices Mandy standing in the doorway. “What the _fuck_ do you want?” Mickey says, ready for a fight. He needs something – anything – to yell at, to destroy, because the alternative is dealing with what’s just happened to him, and he isn’t ready for that.

“Mainly, I want to keep you and that hooker in the other room from killing each other,” Mandy says, “so I told her I’d talk to you and find out what just happened.”

 _Nosy bitch_. Sure, she wants to find out what happened. Because then she gets to satisfy her own curiosity. Mandy doesn’t do anything for Mickey’s benefit – she’s not protecting him for Svetlana, she’s putting her nose where it doesn’t belong. “The baby’s fine, alright? Jesus. Go tell her that so she’ll leave me the fuck alone.”

Mandy bites her lip, watching Mickey without blinking. “And Ian?”

“He was talking, didn’t say anything about having a gun to his head, so I assume he’s just fucking dandy as well.”

“He tell you when they’re coming back?”

“I’m not his fucking keeper, alright?” Mickey bites back, as if that’s the only logical reason Ian would have had for telling him this information.

“What did he say?”

Maybe it’s because he’s tired of playing twenty fucking questions, maybe it’s because he’s just tired – but whatever, whatever the fuck the reason is, Mickey relents at that moment. “He kept worrying about us – me and the whore. Something about them knowing? And I think he said something about the police. It didn’t make any fucking sense.”

Mandy seems to consider this for a moment. “How long was he on the phone?”

“Right, sorry, I was little busy to be watching the god damn clock.”

“Just a guess, then.”

“I don’t know! A minute, no – not even that long. Thirty seconds, maybe? Kept saying he had to go, get off the phone.”

She nods, like this tells her something, and Mickey feels like he’s just betrayed some confidence of Ian’s, though he’s not sure how. “Probably thought he was being traced.”

He stares at her blankly. “The fuck does that mean, ‘traced’?”

Mandy directs her statement to the corner of bed, not meeting his eye. “Like with the microchip he’d say was in his arm? Probably thinks that the cops were monitoring your phone to find him.”

Mickey wants to argue, because the very _idea_ of that is so crazy, but he can’t come up with one good idea to refute this claim. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Ian anymore, and he certainly couldn’t have ever guessed _this_ was going to happen, so who was he to tell Mandy she was wrong? He hated to admit it, but it seemed her (and that fucker Lip, not that he’d ever admit it) had a better idea of Ian these days than she did. So instead, he drags his palm over his face, trying to will away the fear and exhaustion. “So what the fuck do we do with this, then?”

“Maybe we should get the police involved.”

Mickey snaps to attention. “No. _Fuck no_. You forget the military’s got it out for him already? Deserting, stealing a helicopter?” Mandy raises an eyebrow at Mickey, the unspoken challenge hanging in the air between them. The idea that stealing a helicopter was some warning sign for whatever it is that’s happening with Ian right now. That they should have seen this coming, that Mickey failed by not doing something sooner. “Oh fuck you, that isn’t… _this_. It was the fucking army, he didn’t belong there.”

Mandy shrugs, determined not to argue the point about whether Ian did or didn’t belong in the army, not to let Mickey drive her away from the point about the police. “You have some idea how to find someone who doesn’t want to be found? Last I checked that’s kinda the police’s job. He doesn’t have money, he doesn’t have a way to take of the baby, they can’t just stay out there.”

“I’m not fucking calling the cops on him, Mandy. No fucking way.”

Mandy rolls her eyes. “I get you think you can handle what’s going on with Ian all on your own, but _this_ should at least show you it’s a little bit bigger than you’re letting yourself admit. The least you could do is call his family. Maybe they’d know where he went, some clue how to find him.”

Mickey flips her off then, and eventually she walks away in a huff, but not before she puts his phone on the dresser by the door, presumably not as smashed to bits as he’d thought he’d left it. Mickey keeps pacing, wishing not for the first time in his life that his room was a bit bigger. Then he’s throwing his hands in the air, grumbling and cussing under his breath, and grabbing his phone off the dresser.

He’s got the phone to his air as soon as it registers the contact he selected. “Yeah, Fiona?” he says, trying to keep his phone steady. “We gotta talk. Ian skipped town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for all your kind words, kudos, etc. Until next time, stay safe and stay Gallavich! :)


	12. Those Who Matter Don't Mind

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

**Chapter Twelve – _Those Who Matter Don’t Mind_**

In the time it takes Mickey to pick up a pack of smokes and a fifth of whiskey, the Gallaghers descend on the Milkovich household. Mandy’s corralled Fiona and Lip to the couch in the living room, Mickey notices as he closes the door behind him, and Fiona’s unzipping Liam’s coat as he stands in front of him, fingers in his mouth. Svetlana’s standing on the sink, aggressively scrubbing at a plate and shooting glares at the back of their heads.

“Where’s Yevgeney?” Fiona asks, folding Liam’s coat neatly in half and setting it beside her. “I figured these two could –“ Svetlana slams the plate down on the bottom of the sink, drawing Fiona’s attention. “What’s the matter?”

Mickey holds his cigarette between his teeth, silently bracing himself for the fallout. “He’s with Ian.”

Lip catches on first, his eyebrows jerking upward. “Whoa, he took off _with the kid_?”

Fiona’s standing up in a flash, her arms frantic at her sides. “Where are they? What – why would he just take off like that? Is the baby okay?”

“He would never fucking hurt him,” Mickey says, grumpily, ignoring the other questions he doesn’t have answers to. Fiona doesn’t miss his side step, and she folds her arms over her chest, raising her eyebrows expectantly at him. “They’re fine. _Where_ they’re fine _at_ , I haven’t got a fucking clue, but he called and they’re fine. He thought something had happened to us.” Leave it to Ian to fuck shit up like this for some noble reason.

“Did he say when they were coming home?” Fiona asks, as if it’s that fucking simple. Some vacation, some overnight stay out of town, and then they’ll just be back.

Mickey hesitates, because he doesn’t want to say that he doesn’t know, even though he doesn’t.

“He thinks the police are listening. Mickey couldn’t keep him on the phone.”

Mickey glares at Mandy, wishing very strongly at that moment that she was somewhere – _anywhere_ – else. He felt bad enough betraying Ian’s confidence like this, going to his family, she didn’t need to make it worse.

Lip leans back on the couch, pulling a joint out from behind his ear. “Shit.”

“I don’t understand how this happened,” Fiona says, as if she’s the only one who’s confused here. “I thought he was taking the meds. He was supposed to be fine.”

“He takes the meds every day,” Mickey supplies, grateful that this, at least, he can defend on Ian’s behalf. It’s not Ian’s fault. He _was_ supposed to be fine, because he was taking his meds and trying to do the right thing. He was supposed to be here, him and Yevgeny both. He and Ian were supposed to be lying in bed right now, and things were supposed to be good for them. There was a lot that was supposed to happen, there was a lot of making up to Ian Gallagher that the world had to do, and pissing and moaning about it now wouldn’t exactly fix it.

  

* * *

 

 

Ian can’t sleep. First, he thinks it’s because he’s afraid of rolling over on Yev in his sleep. So he pulls the pen drawer out of the desk in the corner, stuffs it with the blankets from the front desk, and creates a miniature little cradle for Yev on the floor inside it. But once Yev’s fast asleep in the drawer right at the side of the bed, Ian still can’t sleep.

He gets up eight times an hour to check the window. He props the desk chair under the doorknob and secures each of the three locks along the side a handful of times until he’s satisfied they’re secure. He takes the shoelaces out of his sneakers and knots them together, lying on his back in bed and practicing against his thigh for how he’ll strangle an intruder with them.

It’s one time, and he crosses his hands above his leg, testing how much pressure he needs to cut off circulation, that he remembers learning this trick at an ROTC retreat. He nearly trips right over Yev in his scramble to get out of the bed, but makes it to the bathroom before he’s heaving, sunbursts popping on the back of his eyelids as he squeezes them shut. He wishes he could close the eyes in his mind this easily, and shut out the memories. He doesn’t want them anymore.

He allows himself one, brief glimpse in the mirror before he decides the shadows in the corner of the reflection aren’t be to trusted and covers it with a towel.

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey decides, somewhere around four in the morning, that he’s going after Ian. And he would have gone alone, had Svetlana not cornered him as soon as he walked toward the door, demanding to know where the baby was. In her mind, his attempt to leave was akin to a confession that they were in on this together, and it wasn’t until Fiona told Svetlana she and Lip would go with Mickey, and would Svetlana be willing to watch Liam for them until they got back, that Svetlana relented. Liam, who was sitting on the couch kicking his boot-covered feet and giggling about something they’d all missed, seemed to be satisfactory collateral to insure they’d return with her child.

And because Fiona and Lip are going, Mickey insists that Mandy join too. He doesn’t remember what excuse he used, and the truth of it is he just really can’t stomach the thought of being trapped alone with the two of them. As they head out, Svetlana waving Liam’s arm at them in goodbye from the porch, tears on her cheeks she refuses to acknowledge, Mickey realizes that there’s not enough room in the car for Ian and Yev both to come back with them, only the tiny space between Lip and Mandy, who seem to making all the effort possible to keep that distance intact. As he watches the small space in his rearview mirror, Mickey wonders when he decided he didn’t expect to get them both back.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian gets Yev up before the sun, and Yev’s none too thrilled about being strapped back into the too small, frilly car seat. Ian leaves the key on the bedside table, not daring the chance of having to tell something to the front desk that might get them caught on the way out.

They’ve long since gone out of range of all the radio stations Ian knows, but with some tinkering, he’s able to find a crackling station of old rock music. He blasts it, rolling the window down and drumming on the steering wheel, singing the wrong words on purpose and watching for Yev’s grins in the rearview more than the actual road.

 

* * *

 

 

First, Fiona bounces her foot, jiggling her leg up and down in frantic rhythm. Then, she’s pawing at the radio, stopping every few nothes on the dial to study the side of Mickey’s face, as if he’s supposed to have an opinion about the radio. Then, she starts playing with her hair, pulling strands up to her eyes for closer inspection, knotting and twirling it between her fingers.

“Seriously, are you on meth or something?” Mickey demands when he finally grows tired of the near convulsions in the corner of his eye.

“Excuse me?”

“You haven’t stopped moving around since you got in the fucking car,” Mickey explains, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to glare at her.

Fiona shrugs her shoulders, but stills her leg and drops the hair in her hand. She turns her head, glancing at Lip and Mandy, both asleep. “Did you guys have a fight?”

Mickey’s answer catches in his throat. He thinks of Ian, standing there in the kitchen, the hostility between them because Mickey didn’t come home and he couldn’t tell Ian why. The endless tension building walls between them. It was so obvious, now, the multitude of moments he could have done something differently. How many times he should have stopped Ian, shut them up together in that room and not let him leave until he saw the truth of himself. But instead, Mickey had avoided, hid, believed things would work out in time…as if that ever happened.

“Ian’s not exactly been there to fight with,” he says, unsure why he’s even bothering to share. He catches Fiona’s look of consternation, and clarifies. “I don’t really remember the last time he was _him_ , you know? Can’t fight with someone who isn’t there to fight back.” He glances down then, punching a buttons on his phone to light up the display. No new calls.

Fiona’s silent, then, until suddenly her hand is on the crook of Mickey’s arm. Mickey goes to shove her off, but she’s shaking him, pointing out the window. “Pull over at this rest stop.”

“Why, you gotta piss?”

“No, but maybe Ian did.” With no further explanation, she’s pulling her phone out, tapping at the screen.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian stops at the first truck stop they come across, and by then Yev’s been crying for twenty-four minutes. He’s wet, and Ian doesn’t have any more of the floral-print diapers he’d found in the glove box the day before. The truck stop’s meager convenience store yields nothing more than the some “extra absorbency” paper towels, which Ian purchases along with a tourist t-shirt in a garish yellow color. It takes a lot more effort than a regular diaper, but he’s able to line the shirt with paper towels and get is secured around Yev’s waist. As they emerge from the bathroom, Ian catches the eye of a trucker warming something up in the convenience store microwave.

He tells Ian, once they’re outside and Yev’s strapped back in the car seat, to call him Kruger. Ian pulls the car up alongside Kruger’s rig, and leaves the back door open beside Yev’s car seat. Kruger sits in the passenger seat, Ian on his knees between his legs, and Ian gets to work. Kruger stiffens in the seat, his hand coming down to rest on Ian’s hair, his forearm right in front of Ian’s eyes.

There’s a bald eagle clutching a rifle, wings spread across a field of red and white stripes, right there on the thick, meaty part of him forearm. Ian’s spitting out his dick before he can stop himself, grabbing his wrist before he can pull his hand away. “You’re military?”

Kruger’s got more than a few pounds on Ian, and with a little effort, he dislodges his arm from Ian’s grip, busying himself with tucking back into his pants. “And _you’re_ going to judge me? Fucking faggot homophobes, the lot of you. Don’t ask, don’t tell ain’t a thing no more, and for I ain’t been on active duty for nine fucking years.”

The door to the cab isn’t locked, but Kruger’s right leg is still wedged between Ian and the door. _Just the way he planned it, no doubt._ “I want my money,” Ian says, pressing back as far as he can and looking up at Kruger.

“For what? I don’t pay bitches to blue ball me.”

He leans to the side them, his arm reaching over toward the driver seat. Maybe it’s a gun, maybe a knife, maybe even just a phone to let them know he’s got him, but it’s _something_. Ian wishes he hadn’t thought to retie his shoes that morning.

 

* * *

 

 

Mandy wakes up at the car comes to a stop, and mumbles that she’s going to go use the bathroom while Fiona and Mickey approach the front counter.

“What can I do for you folks?” The cashier, a plump woman with curly red hair, asks, rubbing her hands together.

“We’re looking for someone,” Fiona says, holding out her phone. Mickey sees now that she’s pulled up a picture of Ian, an old one from before he left for the army, with his hair short. “We were wondering if he’s been here?”

The woman leans forward, studying the picture, and then looks up at them, her eyes lingering on Mickey a moment longer than he likes. “Have you filed a missing person’s report?”

“Not exactly. He only took off last night, so we’re kinda hoping we can find him before it’s even been long enough to file.”

She pauses again, her eyes turning toward Mickey again. “Look, we have all sorts that come in and out of here, and it’s our policy not to confirm or deny or recollection of a customer without a missing person’s report. You can never be too sure who’s looking for someone who might be better off not being found by them.”

Fiona follows the cashier’s gaze to Mickey this time, who rolls his eyes. “Of for fuck’s sake, are you serious? She’s his fucking sister, and I’m his…” Mickey decides at that second that she doesn’t deserve to know just _what_ he is to Ian, but being ‘his’ seems like as clear an answer as any. “Can you just fucking tell us if you saw him or not?”

“Guys.” Mickey whirls around, nearly crashing straight into Mandy, who’s perched on her tiptoes behind him, looking anxious. “We don’t need her. Come here.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ian throws his head forward, smashing his forehead against Kruger’s groin. He shouts, his hands coming down toward Ian’s throat. Ian hooks his elbow under Kruger’s right knee and jerks to the side, throwing Kruger’s leg over his head and shoving most of his body awkwardly into the driver’s seat.

His fingers scramble against the latch on the door, and Kruger’s boot connects with the back of his head. “Shit!” Ian falls, more than steps, out of the cab of the semi, his knees scraping the asphalt and ripping his jeans. He shoves the door shut as he stands, but Kruger’s feet are already half out the cab, slamming against the door and kicking it wide open again.

Ian slams the car into drive, his seatbelt off and his foot wedging the gas pedal to the floor. He careens out of the rest stop, jerking the steering wheel as far as he can to one side, the force of the turn slamming Yevgeny’s door shut.

 

* * *

 

 

“He was standing outside the bathroom, waiting for me to come out,” Mandy explains, walking between Mickey and Fiona. “Wanted to know if you’d be up for a little ‘business arrangement’. Said he paid the last guy yesterday a hundred for a hummer, but thought you’d probably want twenty more.” She glances at Mickey, who glares back.

“That’s what you came and got me for? To mouth fuck some nasty, sweaty ass truck driver?”

“Grow up, asshole. When I asked him about the last guy, he said he was good, but they had to cut it short ‘cause his baby started crying. Little bald thing in a pink car seat.” Mickey’s breath catches, and Fiona shoots him a meaningful look.

By now, they’ve reached a semi, parked by a gas pump, and there’s a guy leaning against the front wheel well, smoking a joint. “This the guy you saw yesterday?” Mandy asks, holding out Fiona’s phone.

“That’s the one. Recognize that twink’s little ginger mop anywhere.”

 _He paid the last guy yesterday a hundred for a hummer._ Mickey jumps forward before either of them can stop him, crashing his knee into the guy’s chest, his elbow smashing into the back of his head and he doubles over. “Don’t you _ever –_ “ He kicks at him again, throwing him to the ground “-fucking call him that again, do you fucking hear me?” He rears back, then flings his foot forward again, the guy coughing and choking on the ground. “Fucking faggot. “

“Mickey, stop!” Mandy grabs his shoulder, her fingers prodding at his collarbone to pull him back. “Come on, he didn’t…he didn’t know, okay?” Mickey can’t look back at her, his eyes fixated at the man in front of him on the ground. Ian, somewhere out there, turning tricks in fucking parking lots because he needs the money, too scared to come home and Mickey’s chest burns because he knows it’s his fault. He should have done more.

Mandy won’t let go of his shoulder, backing him up the smallest fraction of an inch, but he leans forward, spitting on the guy’s face. “I ever hear you do this shit again, I _promise_ you I will rip your dick right out of your fucking pants.”

He jerks away from Mandy then, stalking off toward the car, where Lip’s now standing outside, smoking a cigarette. “The fuck happened back there?” Lip asks around his cigarette, jerking his head at the truck in the distance.

Mickey’s rubbing his knuckles, and pushes past Lip to get back into the driver’s seat, but not before he hears Fiona’s response. “I _think_ he was…defending Ian’s honor?” Her tone is so full of bewilderment, Mickey almost wants to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, it's been a HUNDRED years since I uploaded. I apologize! And I wish this chapter was a little more...story progressive?? Idk, it's leading to something either next chapter or the one after that I've been waiting since the start of this story to write. So look forward to that, I suppose? Thank you for being patient with my slow uploads recently, you guys are the greatest!


	13. Ginger Snapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Non-con sexual content (not particularly graphic).

**_SWEAR THIS ONE YOU’LL SAVE_ **

****

**Chapter Thirteen – _Ginger Snapped_**

****

It isn’t really until Ian’s off the bus, standing at attention with 30-some other recruits, that he realizes he’s really done it – he made it to basic training.

 

He wonders, just for a moment, the hot sun already burning the tip of his nose where the hat doesn’t quite shield him, what Mickey and Svetlana are doing at that moment. Eating dinner, watching tv, maybe having sex. Do they fuck? Mickey’s never exactly _not_ fucked women, even if he didn’t particularly like it, and they _are_ married now, and those pregnancy hormones….

 

“Did I fucking stutter, private?” It’s only now that Ian realizes the drill sergeant is right in front of him, theirs noses only a breath apart. He’s a little shorter than Ian, but he hunches himself forward, filling Ian’s space in a way that seems to overshadow him.

 

“N-no,” Ian responds, automatically, because he’s guessing he didn’t stutter, even if Ian is now.

 

“The _fuck_ did you just say to me, private?”

 

“No, sir!” Ian repeats, louder. He knows how to do this – it’s ROTC 101 – but he’s off his game, today.

 

“I said drop, private, and give me twenty. Daydreaming’s for the navy, not _my_ army men.”

 

So Ian falls to the ground, kicking his legs out behind him. Twenty push-ups is nothing, but the drill sergeant makes him repeat it four more times before he’s satisfied. He bounces back up, rocking on the balls of his feet to regain his balance, his lips a thin line to hold back his gasps for air.

 

He’s practically holding his breath, stars bursting in his eyes, but he still catches the long glance down his arms before the sergeant speaks again. “What’s your name, private?”

 

“Gallagher, sir.”

 

There it is again – that extended stare, the flick of the eyes to his lips. “At ease, soldiers. You’ve got twenty minutes to get settled, then report to the yard for training.” Ian moves, but he’s not even a step away when the sergeant’s hand grips the crook of his elbow. “Not you, Gallagher. You’ll be coming with me.”

 

“ _Get on your fucking knees. That’s a fucking order, private.”_

_“Funny, I don’t feel very private right now.”_

 

It isn’t until twenty minutes later, when Ian’s face down in the mud crawling under the barbed wire, that he realizes he didn’t even stop to think about it. There’d been a zipper, then two hands on his shoulders, shoving him down on his knees, and he’d busied himself before he’d even recognized he’d agreed to something.

_“What you wanna be in the military, private?”_

_“An officer, sir. Someday I’d like to go to West Point.”_

_“A lifelong, eh? That’s a long time to have a difficult time in the army, Gallagher. You want it to be a hard time?”_

_“No, sir.”_

_“Then you’d do well to keep your fucking mouth shut about this. Just so happens my cousin, he’s a lifer too – landed himself a position in admissions at West Point, did you know that? Hate to have to tell him about what a fucking pansy bitch he’d be letting in if they took you, wouldn’t I?”_

* * *

 

Ian merges back onto the highway without his blinker, earning a loud blare from the horn of the car that jumps around him into the other lane, a meaty hand jabbing the middle finger at him. His vision blurs for a moment, two middle fingers dancing on one hand, but then it’s back to normal, the dull ache in the back of his head intensifying.

 

Yev’s screaming in the backseat, his face red and his fists balled, and Ian’s inclined to agree with his assessment of the situation.

 

“Shh, shh, hey, it’s okay,” he says instead, his breath loud and shaky. “C’mon, Yev, we were having fun! Just a little adventure, okay? Shh, come on…Yevvy want some ice cream? Hmm, how does that sound?”

 

Yev’s only response is the same ear-splitting shriek, but Ian turns on his blinker for the next exit anyway.

 

_Don’t trust them. They know what you did._

He slams on the breaks as soon as he’s on the exit, jerking the wheel and screeching to a stop on the side of the lane, right in the curve. _They’re coming for you. He sent them._

 

He chances a glance into the rearview mirror, and behind Yev’s head, he sees the shadows creeping onto the rear window.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s a little drunk, and he’s standing in the bathroom, stretching his arm up and around the back of his head to take in the view of his new tattoo a little better. It was him and a couple of the other privates, sneaking out in the middle of the night, several beers deep when one of them had the idea of getting these matching tattoos. _Make the brotherhood official._

 

“The fuck did that come from?”

 

He catches his eye in the mirror before he tries to turn around, his arm back at his side. Sergeant Remes, as Ian now knows him. Ian watches his eyes slide downward, narrowing at the reflection of the bald eagle in the dirty mirror.

 

“It’s basic training tradition,” Ian replies, trying to remember where he put his shirt.

 

“I fucking know that, dipshit.” He unbuttons his shirt, sliding it off one arm and pulling his tank to the side, a very similar eagle staring back at Ian’s own from his chest. “Usually the recruits wait till the first one gets sent packing, though. Made pretty poor judgment letting you get one.”

 

Ian whips around then, his back against the sink. “You seriously think I’m quitting before Timms? Didn’t you see him out there, puking after the rope climb?”

 

Remes slides his arm back into his shirt, his eyes not leaving Ian’s. “No one said anything about _quitting_.”

 

“Sir?” Ian questions, suddenly aware of the fact that he hasn’t used the term this whole time.

 

“We need recruits who can follow orders, not dodge them all damn day. No space in these ranks for duty shirkers.” Ian blinks, pretending he doesn’t know what Remes means. But of course he does. That morning, when Remes ordered him to come by the office, Ian had waited till his back was turned to douse himself in hot coffee, earning a trip back to the barracks to change, and then – wouldn’t you know it? – there just wasn’t any time left before training to stop by the office. And the days before, there’d been all sorts of issues – a scuffle with Keller after Ian had _maybe_ insinuated his mother was someone he knew intimately, a shower that just wasn’t working right until ten minutes before morning roll call, a fervent desire to train with the recruits given extra night training, even when his legs were shaking and exhausted.

 

“I’ve completed every directive I’ve been given, sir,” Ian says firmly, deliberately side stepping all the more _indirective_ orders Remes has been doling out.

 

Remes takes a step toward him then, his eyebrows raising, but stops short. “How’s this for a fucking order, then, private? Turn around, drop your fucking pants, and bend the fuck over.”

 

The challenge leaves Ian’s eyes. “No.”

 

Remes’ lips part, just ever so slightly. “Fucking say that again.”

 

“No.” And Ian moves then, straight at Remes, because he’s not staying here a moment longer. It’s all well and good, some casual mouth fucking on the first day of boot camp, but Remes is a straight up dick and Ian’s kind of tired of it. Even more so, he’s tired of being somebody’s bitch. Isn’t that why he got on the bus in the first place? He’d spent lifetimes being a slave to Mickey’s closeted whims, he wasn’t about to do it again.

 

There’s hands against his chest instantly, shoving him backward. Then Remes advances, closing the space between them and blocking off Ian’s escape. “Did you forget where the fuck you are?” He shakes him, and Ian turns his cheek to put some sort of space between their faces. “Piece of shit. You think the army can’t make life _very_ hard for your family? What was it you were telling Costello at mess last night? _Carl_? Was that his name?” Ian’s whipping his head around, glaring at him, before he realizes he’s tipping his hand. “Yeah, _Carl_.” Remes licks his lips, smirking. “Bet he’d just love a little visit from me, don’t you think? What’d you say he was? 10? 12?”

 

Ian kicks his foot around, knocking into Remes’ shin. “You can’t do _anything_ to him! The army wouldn’t let –“

 

“Wouldn’t _let_? Bitch, I _am_ the motherfucking army.” He whips Ian around then, and Ian’s face smacks off the mirror. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. He claws behind him, trying to scratch his face, his arms – _something_.

 

But Remes grabs his hand, twisting his wrist painfully. “If I were you – if I _loved_ my family even half as much as you try to claim – I’d think _real_ fucking careful about where I’m about to put that hand. Think they’re safe if you try to get me? Army’s everywhere, Gallagher, hands in every motherfucker’s cookie jar. You can never hide them.”

 

Ian catches his own reflection in the mirror, his eyes wide. _Bash his fucking skull in_.

 

Remes releases his hand, and Ian lets it fall away from him. It’s noisier than it was before, isn’t it? He wonders if someone’s coming into the bathroom now, but he can’t recognize the person speaking now. _They sent him. They’re after you. It’s not safe. Bash his fucking skull in._

His fingers are unbuttoning his fatigues, and he’s squeezing his eyes shut, forehead against the cool glass of the mirror, pretending he’s someone else.

 

* * *

 

Mandy and Fiona nag Mickey through the next sixty miles to pull over and change drivers for awhile, because surely he’s exhausted. And he _is_ , but why the fuck’s that matter when Ian’s still missing?

 

He gives in, eventually, though they think they’ve pulled one over on him, because when he gets back from the bathroom Lip’s sitting in the driver’s seat – as if he couldn’t see that trick coming before he even got off the highway.

 

Mickey’s pretty sure the part of his brain responsible for most of his major functions fell asleep the instant he sat down. All that’s left is the running though – _you fucked up._

He looks down at his phone, willing it to life with a phone call, a text, fucking _something_. “I didn’t…I didn’t know this kind of thing happened.” He blames the exhaustion for the fact that he didn’t realize he was supposed to shut up before he started talking.

 

Lip glances at him, just a moment, then his eyes are back on the road. “You didn’t ask,” he says, evenly.

 

Mickey swallows back his argument. “I should have,” he says instead, because Ian’s missing and the baby’s gone, and he could have stopped it.

 

“I should have just told you whether you wanted to hear it or not,” Lip says back after the silence, as if that would have made a difference.

 

“Oh please, you two,” Fiona says from behind Mickey’s seat. “We’re going to play the blame game? Lot more of it rests back here with me than either of you. I’m…I’m supposed to be responsible for him. And I just…I don’t know what happened. I lost him.”

 

Mickey wants to look back at Fiona then, and tell her something about it not being her fault, even though he’s not sure he doesn’t blame her at least a little bit. It’s nothing compared to his own sin, but the air is thick with their failures, and none of them can bring themselves to look at each other.

 

Ian Gallagher was better than the lot of them, all put together, any day of the week, and every last one of them let him down.

 

* * *

 

 _You’re not safe_. His fingers are scrabbling at the lock on the door, trying to get it open, knowing Remes will be after him in just a minute. They’d been in the office, Ian up on the desk and Remes over top of him, Ian stripped down to his boxer briefs and a shiner forming on his eye. Ian had slammed his knee into Remes’ dick, buying him just a moment to escape.

 

 _They’re everywhere_. Ian’s hand clasps around the doorknob, and it shocks him. He jumps back, staring at the door, and he sees the shadows that dance across it. _They’re here. They’ll get you. He sent them._

He takes a step back, and knocks right into Remes, who puts his arm across Ian’s throat. “Shut – shut the _fuck_ up. You stop fucking screaming, or I swear to fucking God I will kill you right where you stand.”

 

Ian didn’t even realize he was screaming until Remes is shaking him, and he clamps his mouth shut. “He’s already trying to kill me,” he says through gritted teeth. They’re all over the door, slithering and slimy, and he’s sure if he opens his mouth again they’ll crawl right in.

 

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

 

“He sent them. He sent _you_.” He speaks the words with venom, because suddenly he understands. God’s been after him for awhile now, he’s been in danger this whole time – stupid, _so stupid_ , how couldn’t he see? “You don’t see them? Your back up’s finally arrived.”

 

Remes grip loosens on him, just for a second, and although Ian moves clear of him, he stands just to the side, an arm toward Remes and another toward the door, because he can’t touch it right now. They’ll get him.

 

“You’re fucking insane, you know that? Do you even hear yourself?”

 

Ian laughs, a high little giggle bursting out of his lips. Because of _course_ he wants him to doubt himself. He’s been so blind to this, this whole time, and Remes has just loved it. But he’s not getting fooled again. _They’re after you._ The shadows slide closer, and Ian backs up, hating himself for how he whimpers. “Jesus sent them,” he says, his hands clawing at his own face as he tries to will this world away. He doesn’t want it anymore. He wants to go home, he wants to see his family. He wants to see Mickey, even if just to tell him what a fuckface he is. At least he was safe there. “He sent them to get me, they came to get me!”

There’s silence then, but it’s deafening to Ian, who claws at his temples as if he can dig his ears right out of his head. “You know what? Go ahead, go fucking tell them what you think is happening. I fucking dare you. Think that’s something people are going to believe, you tell them, tell them all.”

 

He grabs Ian by a fistful of hair, jerking his head backward as he shoves him toward the door. “No, please, no – stop!” They’re so close now, and Ian knows in that moment that he’s going to die. _I’m so sorry, Mickey. I love you. I should have stayed._

 

But before they can get him, Remes throws the door open himself, tossing Ian outside. “Fucking psycho.”

 

* * *

 

Mickey’s cheek is smashed against the window, and he doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until he’s jerked awake by the vibrating on his thigh. “Shit.” He scrambles, stabbing at the display, panicked that he’s about to miss the call.

 

“Ian? Ian! Gallagher, where the fuck are you?”

 

Ian says nothing, but he hears Yev screaming in the background. Mickey winces at the sound. “Ian, please talk to me. Tell me where you, please!”

 

Lip flips on the hazard lights and pulls over to the side of the expressway, and Mickey feels Fiona’s hands on his shoulders, but all he knows is the trembling phone he’s pressing to his ear. “Ian, please talk to me,” he says, softer, willing Ian’s voice into existence.

 

* * *

 

“They found me,” Ian whispers, the tears hot on his cheeks. His forehead is resting on the steering wheel, red and sore from where he slammed against the wheel, crying right along with Yev.

 

“Who – Ian, where the fuck are you?”

 

“I tried to run and they found us, I’m so sorry,” he’s sobbing now, it’s an ugly sound, and it hurts his throat.

 

“Are you okay? Ian, please just tell me where you are. Y-you’re scaring me.”

 

Ian’s very soul shatters at his words, and he’s crying harder, his hands shaking so hard he thinks he’s going to drop the phone. He can’t think of anything worse than being afraid, in this moment as they come for him, and he think he’ll really just fall apart right now if it’s happening to Mickey too. It’s the worst feeling in the world, and he just wanted Mickey to be safe from it. “I’m so…I’m so sorry,” he whispers, choking on his sobs.

 

“It’s okay, shit – where are you guys? We’ll come get you, it’s okay. Come on Ian, please just focus, okay? You gotta tell me where you are. It’ll be okay if we just come get you.”

 

It won’t be okay, because the world is ending today and Ian is going to die. Yev and Ian are going to die in this car and all Ian had ever wanted to do was save him. “E-exit 43. But I gotta go. He’s after us. He’s trying to take Yev, and I can’t…I’ve gotta stay with him. I’ve gotta try to save him.”

 

* * *

 

They’re following him, slithering in the grass toward him like whispers in the wind. And he’s running, sprinting without air in his lungs.

 

He can see it, the chopper on the helipad, and he knows he can make it. There are voices behind him now, calling for him, beams of light stabbing at the shadows chasing him, and he’s suddenly aware of the fact that he’s almost completely naked, except for his boxer briefs and his boots, untied and floppy on his feet.

 

He’s in the air before he remembers he doesn’t know how to fly.

 

* * *

 

Mickey’s got the phone pressed so hard against his ear it hurts, and he knows he’s crying, and everyone’s staring at him, but he doesn’t give a shit.

“No! Shit, Ian, stay on the damn phone. Exit 43, you said?” He’s flapping his arm at Lip now, who jerks the car back onto the road, jamming the gas pedal to the floor. “Hey, talk to me. It’s okay, Ian, we’re coming.”

 

He was so sure Ian was going to hang up, but he can still hear Yev scream, but Ian’s sobs are gone. He listens for a moment, unable to distinguish the sound on the phone from the revving of the engine in this car. “Ian – shit, are you fucking driving?”

 

“I’ve got – Mick – I’m gonna save him, okay? They’re not gonna take him. They’re not taking him!”

 

“Who the – Ian, come on! Just pull over! _Jesus,_ Ian, stop driving!”

 

There’s laughter then, on the phone, and for a moment, Mickey swears he’s lost his own mind, because why would Ian be laughing. “Oh, Mickey, I’m so sorry. He got you already. I – I wanted to save you, too.”

 

“What are you _talking_ about?” Mickey shouts.

 

“Jesus took you. I’m so sorry, Mick. I’ll save Yev, I swear I – shit!”

 

The phone loses connection only a moment later, but it lasts an eternity. He hears the tires screech, a scream, a solid _THUD_ , and then…nothing.

 

“IAN!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sigh. I've had this chapter title and parallel between Ian's breakdown with Yev and his breakdown at the army in my head since I first started this story, and we're finally here! Hope you enjoyed...if enjoyed is really the right word?? We've still got a ways to go, so thanks as always for reading!


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